Maria?
The Movie West Side Story is a Romeo and Juliet tragic love story that takes place back in the 1960's where people are overly xenophobic to the new immigrants that have come to America.
Spoilers Beyond this Point
(Skip to end for Drew's Reveiw)
The movie starts out with a mini fight between the Sharks and the Jets. At this point, we have learned that Riff is the leader of the Jets and Bernardo is the Leader of the sharks. Then we are introduced to Tony one of the original leaders of the Jets and on of the main protagonist to the story. Later we are introduced to Maria one of the other main protagonists of the story.
Next, we see the Sharks and the Jets at a public dance that takes place at what we can assume the Gym at their school. Later at the dance Maria and Tony's eyes meet and it's love at first sight. We see all around the two blur and they come in for a kiss.
After this, Bernardo comes over and pushed Tony away from Maria; this starts an argument between the two rival gangs, and both leaders decide that their War Council should take place at Docs, the place where Tony works. Then at Docs place, they decide that it will be an old fashion rumble and it will be a fist-to-fist fight between the members best fighting members.
Later when Maria finds out, she sends Tony to go stop it; but when he gets there it's already starting. Bernardo punches Tony and Riff goes in to defend Tony but it quickly escalates to a one on one knife fight and sadly Riff gets stabbed by Bernardo. Then out of the blind rage, Tony stabs Bernardo killing him. After this, a member of the Sharks Chino decides to try to go after tony with a gun.
Tony and Maria decide that Tony will try to get some money from Doc and they would run away together. But then when a cop comes to question Maria she can no longer go to Tony so she sends Anita to go give Tony a message but after Anita gets assaulted by the members of the Jets trying to give the message to Tony she tells them that Chino shot Maria. So then when Tony hears this he tries to get himself shot by Chino because he can't live without Maria. But then when he is trying to find Chino he finds Maria who was walking to Docs and then when he sees her they both run to go in for a hug but then, BANG! Chino shoots Tony and he dies in Maria's arms. By the end of this, we learn Hate just Leads to more Hate and Hating does not get you anywhere.
The rating of the film is an 8/10.
This will be broken down point by point.
+2: The 1961 "Romeo and Juliet"- like love story between Tony and Maria. It was enjoyable to watch. Seeing them together made you feel bad for them because Tony was the co-founder of the Jets gang and Maria is Bernardo's sister, leader of the opposing gang, the Sharks. My heart dropped and I couldn't look away during the dance scene. Seeing two people fall in love instantly is very emotional
+2: The spin-off of Romeo and Juliet. I liked how this took place in the West side of New York and instead of families, its opposing gangs. It was cool and way better to watch the two gangs go at each other and fight. The hatred and rage toward each other added an aspect to the story that made it the best it could be!
+2: The Rumble. The rumble scene gets 2 full points! Let me say, My heart was falling out of my chest from the second it started to the second it ended. I could not look away from the screen. The intensity of the rumble was something that any other movie could not be able to replicate. I say this because it got progressively more intense as it went on. The hatred was truly shown during the scene and it turned the entire plot around!
+2: The accuracy from Romeo and Juliet. How accurate West Side Story was to Romeo and Juliet is crazy. The only true differences were that instead of families it was replaced with gangs of the West Side that wanted territory compared to two families that have had a past of hatred. It was very accurate to the original play but it had its own creative twist that didn't make it so Shakespeare like.
-2: The musical. I personally hated that it was a musical. It got annoying that there was a song every 5 minutes. But, that is how it is made and some songs were very enjoyable. But, a song that said Maria 31 times like come on, we understand you just met a girl named Maria, Tony.