Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' sees critics and paying audiences part ways: Critics rave about a woke masterpiece, but the American public don't seem to agree with a film that gives them the middle finger

Full disclosure: I despise Steven Spielberg movies and dislike both Romeo and Juliet and the 1961 West Side Story (WSS) movie. For that reason, I take particular delight in noting that Steven Spielberg's remake of WSS may have enthralled critics, but no one is rushing to see it. And no wonder, given that it's so darn woke that parts of it are in a language most Americans don't speak, but Spielberg refused to include subtitles.

Let me quickly get through my biases. I hate Steven Spielberg movies because I find them overblown, predictable, and incredibly boring. I also dislike the way he presents children. I gather from watching bios of him that he was an unpleasant little boy, and so are his characters. Some say they're realistic; I say they're too disagreeable to be trapped with for a movie's duration.

I dislike Romeo and Juliet because it's hard to imagine two more nincompoopish young people. At every opportunity, they take the stupid, thoughtless path. There's nothing romantic about that. The only thing that makes sense to me is the contention that Shakespeare didn't write the play as romance; he wrote it as a cautionary tale holding that impulsive young people should never be trusted to manage their romances and marriages. Unfortunately, Shakespeare's writing was so transcendent that people loved the romance and ignored the message.

And I dislike WSS because the primitive pop psychology of 1950s leftists leaves me cold, and the movie was horribly miscast, with every lead character, except Rita Moreno, being embarrassingly bad. I also dislike Marni Nixon's voice (she dubbed Natalie Wood's singing). The opening Jets ballet is kind of fun in a '50s style, but everything else...meh.

You may disagree with me and probably will. My answer is that nobody will ever accuse me of following the crowd.

Nobody's going to the movies now, so it's not surprising that the didn't see this one.

Judging from the preview, the movie was interestingly shot, but heavy and too PC, so it was a mixed bag.

Spielberg certainly has his annoying faults, but if I saw it, I wouldn't assume that he definitely couldn't surprise or impress me.

I don't think I'd like it, but somebody who hated the original and hated Shakespeare's play probably isn't the best critic for the new movie.

"If I subtitled the Spanish I'd simply be doubling down on the English and giving English the power over the Spanish," the virtue-signaling Spielberg squeaked from his gerbil cage.

Well, then, he should go back and scrub the subtitles from the French and Spanish dialog in Close Encounters of the Third Kind!

After all, if that's what it take to be authentic nowadays . . .

The original West Side Story was about TWO immigrant communities in New York: the Puerto Ricans and the Italians. The Italians have been white-washed. This is to rewrite the history of the country as whites versus the minorities of today, as opposed to the reality of an evolving mix of minorities, and the reality that minorities have moved up the socio-economic ladder and the culture has adapted this way and then that way to reflect assimilation of different people into the country. Of course, there are tensions in this process, as depicted in the original story.

The historical success of most immigrants, as is being replicated nowadays by most Hispanics and Asians, stands in contrast to the limited success of the minorities that have fallen into welfare dependency. The frustration of many native-born African Americans, now seeing Afro-Caribbeans and Africans moving ahead of them, is palpable. Ditto many Puerto Ricans, now seeing not only Cubans but other Latin Americans moving ahead of them. But, what would you expect in communities that are so lacking in husbands and fathers, and successful male role models? So, Hollyweird has to re-write West Side Story to go along with the elite’s re-write of history. No, the elite say, your lack of progress isn’t due to family breakdown, bad schools, corrupt city government, crime and drugs; it’s due to white people.

I will watch Spielberg's West Side Story one time, when its on a basic cable channel, in two years, or less.

Not a big fan of Spielberg, but he has done very well with World War 2 movies...

Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers.

I have also enjoyed two of his recent films on basic cable - Ready Player One and The BFG.

Oh you sly trickster! (for the zero people who don't know, "Dr. Ursus" is pointing out that Peggybac has not seen it).

Please tell us Ursus ... how many movies have you gone to see or avoided based on a review, or any other comment about it from anyone with an opinion you thought was valid?

The lack of subtitles alone is a valid reason to consider the story ruined. In Godfather and Tombstone the unsubtitled scenes are short enough that one can understand the context and look up translations later. Imo that gives the scenes more power. That is not the case here. This idiotic woke omission causes misunderstanding by definition, and the explanation provided by Speilburg for not including subtitles makes his reason for it unambiguous.

I will not spend a dime. If you want to see it I hope you enjoy it. This is America.

I am always amused by how many critics pan a movie based on what the move isn't that their "elevated sensibilities" demand it should be. My favorite example is Starship Troopers. It's a hilarious and campy comic book of a movie and the acting is wooden at best. As I recall the critics hated it. I have yet to screen it for a single "uneducated rube" (including some with technical masters degrees) that didn't thoroughly enjoy it. OTOH, has anyone else noticed how many critically acclaimed films seem to NEVER return to our small screens no matter how many channels there are?

Now if you will all excuse me, Chariots of Fire (7 oscars, including best picture!) is on HBO for the 27th time this week and I am battling insomnia ... ;-)

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