Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 54
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 25
This is a fun comedy with delightful musical numbers.
Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 19
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 6
This is a fun comedy with delightful musical numbers.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 8,425
Gregory Nava directed this biographical drama on the brief but intense life of singer Frankie Lymon who stayed with the popular Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers group only for a year. Lymon was 13 years old when the group erupted from radios and jukeboxes with their 1956 hit, Why Do Fools Fall in Love? and appeared in the movie Rock, Rock, Rock (1956). After Mr. Rock and Roll (1957), Lymon turned solo, but then it all fell to pieces. Lymon's career was over by the time he was 18, and he died of a
Aug 8, 1998 Wide
May 1, 2001
Warner Home Video
All Critics (55) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (29) | Rotten (25)
Too ill defined to emerge from the pack of box office also-rans.
A celebration of pop fantasies, a boyish rascal with a helium voice, and three pretty fools who fell in love with him.
A fresh, enlightening example of how to take a tragic American show-business story and make it funny, warm and terrifically entertaining.
Though Nava's soapy directing style makes Fools watchable enough in a campy way, the film's unsophisticated nature undermines its better qualities.
Lymon's career may have been short and sad, but Why Do Fools Fall in Love finds the melodrama of his life in the exciting music of his time and the tumult of his romances.
What made Frankie run? The movie clearly doesn't know.
This biopic is soulless, underwritten, over-acted and, worse, just plain dull.
Larenz Tate is terrific recreating the excitement of Frankie's stage presence.
Worth it for the music -- but only barely.
The biggest problem is the man at the center.
The film creates a jigsaw puzzle that, at the end of nearly two hours, still is missing pieces.
Why did they make it so muddled?
Director Gregory Nava's recreation of Frankie Lymon's late '50s-early '60s performances are exuberant.
more often than not Andrews' screenplay can't decide if it's a cautionary tale about the perils of marrying a has-been or a rowdy 'you go, girl' celebration of sisterhood.
A cop-out!
Based on a true story: Frankie Lyman (Why do fools fall in love).
August 29, 2011
Super Reviewer
The first hour or so ranks as favorite movie material. It's enormously entertaining and a fresh spin on standard biopic: Diana Ross's cover of Why Do Fools Fall in Love spawns a court case where three women claim the rights to the song as Frankie Liman's wife. My favorite sequence is an infectious Larenz Tate singing
May 30, 2007Super Reviewer
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