West Side Story (2021)

"A dynamite blend of old-school musical showmanship and modern sensibilities."

"The filmmaker honors a sacred piece of musical theatre... with some of the most exhilarating setpieces he’s ever shot, but there are a handful of puzzling missteps."

"You will leave the theatre swooning, in love with the biggest kind of big picture."

"A new milestone in the career of one of our greatest living directors."

"Conviction - a commitment that can't be faked... - is what underpins, energises and ultimately justifies this West Side Story."

"West Side Story is a bursting, live-wire pageant of a movie. I just wish it had a final act that soared instead of lumbering to what feels like an overly determined message-movie landing."

"Far from a radical revisionist triumph..."

"Vibrant..."

"(A) glowing remake."

"Review: Steven Spielberg’s transcendent ‘West Side Story’ improves on (the) original’s greatness."

"An exuberant modern fairytale..."

"Steven Spielberg has shown us how you remake one of the great movie musicals. Yet I'm not sure if, at any point in this peerless homage, he manages to show why."

"Individual elements work, but (it's) just flat and stiff in the main. And Elgort a dead weight right at the centre."

"A stunning, loving spectacle that confidently scales the fence right to the top of the movie-musical pack."

"Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner... untap fierce new resonance in the story’s treatment of immigration, race, gender, masculinity and gentrification."

"Both a reimagining informed by contemporary values and a lavishly mounted throwback."

"Is it sacrilege for Spielberg to re-imagine this 1961 musical classic? Not when it's this thrilling."