Steven Spielberg remaking West Side Story

To each their own, but I finally did end up seeing part of Spielberg's reboot/rermake of the 1961 film version of West Side Story (I could not bring myself to see the whole thing), and I found the color way too dark and/or way too bright/intense, the orchestral rendition of the musical score too metallic sounding and flat in many places, plus I thought that the singing voices of both Rachel Zegler (who played Maria) and Ansel Elgort (who played Tony) rather overrated. Zegler's voice, imho, was too thin, too nasal, and not projected forward enough and she went flat in many places, and Ansel Elgort's voice was nothing to write home about, either.

I'll also add that the fights, including and especially the Rumble itself, were extremely violent, and the back stories of the Sharks and of Tony were totally unnecessary. The dancing, imho, was too hyped-up, the Jets and Sharks in Spielberg's West Side Story film version look too much alike, and their girls looked far more like a bunch of suburban prep-school kids who were dressed to the nines for partying around town than a bunch of gangsters' girlfriends

Unlike the backdrop scenes in the original 1961 film version of West Side Story, which were masterfully created by the late Boris Leven, who seamlessly combined both on-location and sound-stage scenes to create backdrop scenes that looked uncannily like the impoverished, rough and rundown sections of the city, the backdrops of Spielberg's 2021 film version of West Side Story looked far more like the tonier, wealthier sections of the city, rather than the impoverished, rough and rundown sections of the city.

All told, Spielberg's film version of West Side Story was rather heavy, with no lightness to it, which a musical is supposed to have, and it feels totally forced, unnatural and wrong and unnatural, and not a bit like West Side Story at all.

Having said all of the above, the old, original 1961 film version of West Side Story is the real deal for me, and I much prefer the old, original 1961 film version over then new 2021 film version of WSS, which, imho, is the real deal.

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I caught it a few months back (during one of those cable free-preview holiday weekends) and I was going to comment that the remake provided a lot more back story on some of the characters... which was interesting, but also made the movie feel longer than it needed to be.

I didn't care for most of the casting (just looks-wise, although I thought Maria was cute and looked more authentically Puerto Rican than Natalie Wood did) but that's probably because the looks of the characters are indelibly seared into my memory by the original.

The remake felt more "reality-based" due to the look of it while the original looked like a stage show put to screen

I kind of make the comparison that the WSS remake is to the original what Nolan's Batman is to Tim Burton's Batman. (But for a musical, I'm not sure if that's a good thing.)

In other words, after being called out for prejudging the film without seeing it, you watched a little bit of it just to preclude that objection. And by complete coincidence your opinion is exactly what it was before seeing any of it.

You made up your mind about this film before a single frame was shot, and have not only repeated it incessantly, but have even vaguely harassed people who liked it. You literally contradicted people before seeing any of it, for crying out loud, so it's no surprise that after deigning to merely watch some of it your opinion is unchanged. Because it was never an opinion to begin with: it was simply dogma.

You call this a review, but I think it's a closer to a religion.

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Another quick memory about the remake:
One of my favorite numbers "Gee Officer Krupke" just didn't seem right without Riff in the performance (he's basically the lead in that number in the original).

I thought it was all right but just didn't move me in the way the original did (then again I don't think Spielberg was intending to make a 'better' film, other than having actors of the right ethnicity).