In the Heights (2021)

In The Heights

It is difficult to know where to begin with this review as there were just so many problems, in terms of a hit musical it was such an American story containing so many specific things particular to that place that it was just not transferable this side of the pond. It had the feel of a stage show rather than a movie and needed adapting quite differently for it to work, remember that feline monstrosity Cats last year, same problem.

There was very little musical variety, we just had exhausting Hispanic rap relentlessly, I didn't know that was a thing, and I can only recall two memorable songs, granny's song and the fiesta, the rest were just instantly forgettable. The vocal variety was also flat the same tricks over and over, this was certainly no Bernstein, Weber or even Disney!

The dancing was just mass freneticism, totally lacking any imagination, even the Busby Berkeley tribute didn't work.

Now to look more disturbingly at the themes, it was difficult to look beyond these intentional inserts, it just grated at nearly every turn. We had dreadful female objectification, racial stereotyping, tokenism, white shaming and a tick box agenda of political tropes.

Lastly the whole plot rested on people having left Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba for real reasons of poverty and danger and yet these same people were desperate to return rather than embracing their new home, and then implying the only way to get on in America is to win the lottery, really quite absurd, I felt cheated!

I must say I was so looking forward to this and it sadly disappointed. A weak 5 out of 10.

Fmovies: I feel people are being incredibly biased while watching this.

There was literally nothing to the story. The songs were cheesy and so were the characters.

It was so superficial and I just don't understand how anyone could have enjoyed it.

One of the weirdest, boring, uncomfortable and worst musicals ever.

All the things that are wrong with this movie could be summed up by the big midpoint dramatic sequence.

Character drama with celebratory singing and dancing. A dramatic scene where everyone's happy. It's so dark. But LOOK AT THE FIREWORKS!!!

This movie is too long and can't seem to let any drama build for more than 30 seconds before assaulting the screen with smiling faces and singing. I'm Latino so I really wanted to like this. Some of the songs are. Ice. Some of the themes resonated with me. But the music and dance is not strong enough to carry a 2.5 hour movie with no drama and focus.

Favorite scene: the abuela musical number with the flashback (paciencia y fe). Fantastic!

In the Heights fmovies. Just way too long and should have been 30-40 minutes less. First couple of numbers and you think, this is pretty cool, but it soon gets very repetitive and the 'follow your dreams' message which is forced down your throat the whole time gets very tiresome. Good casting, dancing and a couple of numbers but too much of it overall. Can imagine this being good on the stage, perhaps it should have stayed there.

At an hour and a half in literally nothing has happened ... seriously nothing. None of the characters have flaws at all so they feel like plastic people. They are talented dancers and singers and I wanted to like this film but it is all style and not a single ounce of substance.

I do not understand why this has so many good reviews because when you take away the dancing and visuals there is literally no story.

For some reason Moana kept popping to mind while watching this movie. If you've seen Moana, you might appreciate the clear narrative purpose of it's songs, their dosing and simply their composition. 'In the Heights' fails on these points though.

So this is just my opinion, but for a movie or musical, a good song has a clear message and narrative purpose. Be it to make clear a characters intent or state of mind, or to unveil a specific plot twist or something of the sorts. In 'In the Heights' however, songs jump from subject to subject; from a persons background to the situation another person finds themselves in, to romantic aspirations, to life beyond The Heights, etc. They tried to cover to much content in most songs, and it just leaves the senses overloaded.

Not helping those senses is that most songs are just too high strung; they have a constant high energy and intensity as if every line is the highlight of both the song and the movie. There is no pacing or ease, no breaks or just a moment where they shut up and give the music a moment to breathe, which makes the watching experience rather exhausting.

The acting itself is good, the story is cute, but the movie aims to be a musical and in that it just fails.