The crowded look of the film helps to compensate for the Joel Schumacher script, which appears to be no more than a skeleton.

It's a rags-to-riches story that doesn't miss a stop along the well-trod ghetto-to-musical-charts path, but makes its journey with tuneful conviction.

Hackneyed, ho-hum 1976 feature about a black girl group, clearly modeled on the Supremes.

Sparkle is watchable because the music by Curtis Mayfield is very good, and the ladies, even though they don't have much, at least nostalgically evoke the grace, style, and power that The Supremes had in the past decade. [Full review in Spanish]