Lin-Manuel Miranda is this century’s Beethoven and Mozart. That might be a slight exaggeration, but he is creating music that is startling the world the same as those two musical giants did in their time. Miranda is writing music for our time, the 21st Century, and for the tastes and vibes of young people around the world. He did just that for his magnificent stage/film musical In the Heights. This joyous, energetic song and dance-filled movie version of the hit Broadway show is sure to entrance everyone who sees it.

 So, what are Jon M. Chu and Miranda trying to tell us with this exuberant film? The storyline is that people want a home to relate to and to live in a community. They have dreams and aspirations. They want to succeed with dignity and happiness. And they want to find out how big they can dream.

Anthony Ramos is wonderful in his part as a young store owner named Usnavi de la Vega, after a big US Navy ship! Having starred on Broadway in Miranda’s world-wide hit “Hamilton” and in a stage version of “In the Heights,” he steps into the role that Miranda himself originated. Feeling too old now to play the part, he cast Ramos as the young man with a dream. Ramos is a new star on the horizon. He can project enough charisma and sexuality that fans will be gaga over him in an instance. He may become the biggest Latin star in films since the days of Ricardo Montalban (Mexico), Cesar Romero (Cuba) and Fernando Lamas (Argentina) in the 1950s. Ramos is of Puerto Rican heritage but a full-blooded American New Yorker.

Director Chu has wisely chosen the terrifically talented choreographer Christopher Scott to design the dance sequences---of which there are many to keep the audiences’ toes tapping---to produce exhausting and thrilling terpsichorean gymnastic movements for the dancers to astonish our eyes. Scott (37) came to prominence with the Step Up films and for his three Emmy nominations for “So You Think You Can Dance” TV series (2012, 2014, and 2018). Scott, who thinks beyond the usual constraints of dancers, humbly dedicates one of the great scenes in the Heights movie to veteran choreographer Busby Berkeley (Warner Bros musicals such as Forty Second Street) with the song “96,000,” shot in the Washington Heights municipal swimming pool with iconic overhead shots of swimmers engaging in kaleidoscopic poses. It’s a great tribute to the talented Berkeley.

Director Chu is imaginative and not a run of the mill director. In the song “When the Sun Goes Down” between Nina (Leslie Grace) and Benny (Corey Hawkins), he has the couple suddenly dancing up the side of an apartment building—a stunning and reverent reference to something similar Fred Astaire did in Royal Wedding (1951), while dancing up the walls and on the ceiling in his MGM film.

The music, all by Miranda, is loud and shattering and gets into your atoms and makes you want to get up and dance your feet off. The sound people use Dolby/ Atmos to rumble your butts in your seats and pierce your ears with decibels above and beyond the capacity of the human ear. But it gets into your bones and gives you the most happiness you have ever experienced in a musical. The joy and fun the dancers are having is contagious. Terrific performances by Daphne Rubin-Vega as hairdresser Daniela and the songs of Melissa Barrera (Vanessa), Stephanie Beatriz (Carla), and Olga Merediz (Abuela Claudia) sock you with a double whammy with their over-sized talents. And as a surprise artist, singer and recording star Marc Anthony makes an impressive appearance.

In the Heights is, without question, a magnificent musical. It’s the best songfest on the screen in many, many years. It’s definitely a winner, we have a new star in Anthony Ramos, and we are treated to Lin-Manuel’s brilliant rap-style lyrics and infectious tunes. This is definitely a don’t miss movie for this year.

(Released by Warner Bros. Available on HBO Max. Rated “PG-13”  for some language and suggestive references.)