Despite being excited because of Chu, I have honestly not been too bothered by most of his films. It was when I saw Crazy Rich Asians I could see he had found his calling card. With the addition of his choreographers from his 'Step Up' days involved, I knew the potential was there for a blast of summer with this musical project.
Even though musicals have never left us, they have been making somewhat of a comeback in the last few years. They may not be as regular as they were in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. But the occurrence of them are becoming more regular. With the success of A Star Is Born, The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Sing Street, the right ingredients can make this a global success.
Before I go into film, I must mention that I have never seen the stage musical. So I am reviewing this solely on the film adaptation.
With that being said, I found this to be an enjoyable feel-good watch.
The vibe had a lot of energy and bounce to it from start to finish. As for the story, I did feel a bit nervous at first as I could see many characters being introduced and was struggling to remember who was who. But as the film went on, the way the film was structured made it easier for me to distinguish the ensemble cast.
Once I got more aware of the characters, I was getting more and more absorbed in the community the characters have and could feel the heat of the city landscape. The sequences got more and more adventurous with the addition of visual effects and suspending your disbelief at times to give us rewarding results and a satisfying conclusion.
The cast do a great job and there are certainly some stand out performances. Anthony Ramos gives us a breakthrough performance as the lead and carried the film really well. The passion, charisma and drive was there for all to see and gave us a believable and relatable character that felt easy to get invested with. Another performance that shot their level of stardom into the stratosphere was Melissa Barrera. Her screen presence showed instant strength and felt like a safe pair of hands from the moment she turned up on screen. Whenever Barrera took centre stage, she carried herself with a fearless approach to her role and had good chemistry with Ramos.
Olga Merediz was a nice surprise as her role could have easily got lost in the mix. But I think her experience of playing the character the stage gave her the perfect foundation to shine in the film format. Leslie Grace's performances amazed me given the fact that this was her feature film debut. The confidence was oozing out of her and it looked as if she had been doing this job for years.
Other performances that are also worth mentioning was Corey Hawkins who continues to expand his skillset with another fine performance, Jimmy Smits who showed he is more than just General Organa from Star Wars, Gregory Diaz who gave plenty in his performance to show he will have a great future in this industry and creator Lin-Manuel Miranda plays a nice minor role of a kind of overseer to the main story which was a nice touch.
With this being a musical, the sound and score is obviously important. The general sound of the film definitely had me transported to that part of the world and I could feel the strong community themes the film was portraying. While the score by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bill Sherman and Alex Lacamoire did not for me have any instant hits, there were definitely a large number of pieces that I can love the more times I hear them.
One aspect that I felt enhanced the experience and gave it that cinematic touch, was the cinematography by Alice Brooks. Some could have just given the film a more basic look as they already know this story can work on the stage, But Brooks made this worthy of being on the big screen and gave us many interesting angles and sweeping tracking shots during its many dancing sequences.
The only drawbacks I got from a first viewing, was that there were moments of having too many subplots. That could also be in relation to the almost 2hrs 30mins duration, which to me felt a bit too long for the story it was saying.
But as that was only a minor drawback, I felt this was a thoroughly enjoyable experience with plenty to like about it. It sends out a good message of community, family, gentrification, identity and immigration, it's fun, there's plenty of characters to get invested with and the soundtrack will be great to listen to during the summer.
I must mention that there is a post-credits scene to stay for that adds a nice little conclusion to one of its many subplots.
After seeing this, I can see why this was delayed from 2020. This was made for the big screen and every aspect shows you why. This is an accessible film for a mainstream audience. The characters are engaging, the music and general sound is great and the look of it really transports to the hot and sweaty streets of Manhattan. This is ideal summer viewing.
Rating: 8/10
