Lacy Flying

I was so excited to see this movie because I loved the play so much. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius lyricist and story teller. But I think the fact that he had less control over the movie adaptation of his wonderful play hurt it. Jon Chu is a wonderful director, but I think he was the wrong choice for this. He did things that were distracting from the story and not in keeping with the flavor of the barrio. Important characters were cut, unimportant ones were added, new story lines thrown in without the time to explore them, and scenes taken out of context and rearranged. It's as if they really dumbed it down for the movie-going audience. The cinematography was beautiful, but at times made it all seem cartoonish, rather than highlighting the important portrait of this marginalized segment of America that the Broadway production was. The actors and dancers all did a wonderful job, I don't think they could have put together a better cast. Marc Anthony's performance was powerful, but unfortunately, unnecessary. If you were thinking of going to see it I'd say it's still worth it, but know that, at least in my opinion, it could have been better. It IS better, as a play.