Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

glitterattigroup I loved this on so many levels...The story was well written and truly took me everywhere Celia was. I felt as though I was actually in those places, feeling what she felt... I loved the love between Celia and Pedro, rarely do you see this type of unconditional love last through a lifetime.The music, the performances were absolutely wonderful, as were the costumes!Celia Cruz impacted so many people and so many lives. TELEMUNDO THANK YOU FOR CHRONICLING THE LIFE OF CELIA CRUZ! AN ABSOLUTELY MUST WATCH! GREAT JOB!

Jack Butler The music, sense of place, acting and characters were compelling and wonderful, up until the time jump. The shift in actors was jarring and the "old" versions lacked the charm and energy of the original cast. In particular, the actress who played the "old" Lola, was a pastiche of mannerisms. It appears someone told her that "drug addicts" play with their mouths continually. Her constant touching of her lips and cheeks was distracting, and by all accounts had nothing to do with the real La Lupe, upon whom the character was supposed to be based. The "old" Pedro had the energy of a spent copper-top, running the emotional gamut from A to B. Seriously, this was essentially two novellas, jammed together any old way. Wonderful for the first half, and a slog of amateur hour performances for the second.

cmventur ****Some spoilers***I watched a few episodes back when it first came out and decided to watch it on Netflix as my next binge show. First and foremost this a biopic telenovela. As such characters and story lines have been embellished or created for drama and entertainment. If you expected a accurate biopic move along. People were upset about the additional characters and story lines taking center stage must understand what medium this show is produced for telenovelas are shown long runs and the main story is sprinkled in to milk the episode#. That said the production value is superb almost movie-like. Costumes, set designs and such were very nice, the acting was pretty good and they choose people who resembled the real life Celia and Pedro albeit much more attractive as TV shows do. The music had the Cuban-flavor despite it not being completely accurate as others noted only 3 songs of hers actually being sung in the show, blame Sony for that they own her music catalogue and charged the studio an arm and a leg for the rights. Overall its really entertaining, beautiful to look at from costumes, sets and actors overall an easy 10/10 as a telenovela, as a TV drama i would say its a 7-8 out of 10.

Albert Vasquez WARNING!!! MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!What started off as a promising biopic/series filled with energetic performances and musical numbers, tragically failed to get it right in the long run. The series was given 80 episodes to tell the story of a legend (80 EPISODES) and yet wasted most of the show's run showing us irrelevant character story lines of people that didn't even really exist; they were fictional characters. The director felt the need to fill in some gaps with stories that not only dragged, but had absolutely nothing to with Celia or her accomplishments. Eventually these story lines became the center of attention for most episodes. Mario, Raquel, Myrelys, Renee, Lola Calvo; all characters who pretty much took more screen time away from the principal artist herself. They wasted so much time on scenarios that weren't needed and characters that had no real meaning to the story line that sadly, the last 15 episodes were rushed. Jumping 10 years within one episode. One of the biggest disappointments was the portrayal of Celia's career with Fania Records in the 1970's. The 70's was when Celia Cruz was at her prime. I anticipated seeing her in that prime; perform at large venues (similarly to her Madison Square Garden concert scene in the first episode) I was hoping to hear all the great songs she recorded and performed with Fania. I wanted to see more of her friendship with Johnny Pacheco and others like Willie Colon, Hector Lavoe and Pete El Conde. We didn't get any of that in this show, instead we got 3 of her hits, 1 of which was only heard as background music. We had two archive concert footage of the real Celia performing in Yankee Stadium and Africa. No scenes recreated, no effort what so ever and her 1970's prime was only shown within 5 episodes, most of which consisted of Mario, Raquel and Myrelys love triangle story line that was not needed or wanted. I was hoping to see and hear more. It was way too little bit of music and performances for a show with so many time on its hands.I wanted to see more of Celia and her life. I get that supporting roles are needed and I would've wanted that as well, but with characters who meant something to Celia or her career. People who contributed professionally and personally like Johnny Pacheco. Why not show us more of the artists who were apart of her life and music? Those artist who were her friends? They did succeed in the beginning with the supporting roles of Myrta Silva and Rogelio Martinez; that's what we needed more of, those characters.Now Lola Calvo. This character was adored as a fictional secondary character. She was a friend who happened to be an aspiring artist as well. Then we find out she based on Latina legend soul singer, La Lupe. Then we see her character get treated with the utmost disrespect and become annoying, hateful and just pathetic. It was a slap in the face to La Lupe and her legacy. For starters, La Lupe wasn't raped as a teen or young adult; she didn't have a step father her real father loved her very much and was very supportive. She came from a happy family who adored her; her mother was always apart of her life. Her music career was the greatest of any Latino entertainer of that time in that genre of music. She was never friends with Celia. She never spoke bad of or even mentioned Celia ever. Their only negative encounter was in 1978 when La Lupe had jokingly remarked that Pedro Knight was a santero, which angered Celia. That was it. I had high hopes for this, they had so much potential. Most biopics get 2 hours or less to tell the story of a legend and many fail to tell the full story because of it. Celia had 80 EPISODES and ended up rushing through the years in the end. There was no need for that. It failed in many ways and I'm truly disappointed.