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Reviews
Ángel Rebelde (2004)
Murphy's Law of Telenovelas
Just about everything that could go wrong on a telenovela did with this one. I am not sure how to explain it but almost every character I liked had a bad ending and most of the ones I didn't like had a good ending or at least one better than they deserved.
Gretel Valdez is very good looking and was impressive in the role of the heroine Lucia. Later on she did "Rebelde" where she was also terrific.
Osvaldo Rios was tremendous in the role of Alejandro Valderrama and this was the best male character on the show. Unfortunately circumstances caused the character to not be used to the highest potential.
The legal issues off camera were one of the many things that started this telenovela downhill from whence it never bounced back.
The main villains on the show were played by Claudia Islas and Maritza Rodriguez. Claudia Islas did a good job in "Corazon Salvaje" and her performance as Doña Enriquetta was equally impressive. The rivalry between the characters Alejandro and Enriquetta was one of the few bright spots on the show.
Maritza Rodriguez was not impressive at least in my opinion. In spite of the character's apparent homicidal abilities it was ridiculous. The character Cristal obviously wasn't even smart enough to swat a fly and yet the writers of this show would like us to believe she was so dangerous. Her character had a "better" ending than she deserved.
Ariel Lopez Padilla played the identical twin characters Ernesto and Romulo and I disagree with the earlier review that stated these characters were totally different. To me it seemed they were very similar in that they were usually good but sometimes did things that were not right. Overall he did a pretty good job under the circumstances.
Another rare bright spot was Desideria deCaro who played the cousin of the Lezama family called Patricia. She played the villain earlier in the Venezuelan novela called "Engañada" and I really enjoyed her performance in that as well. Patricia was slightly more sympathetic but usually tended to be self-serving and on balance was a villain.
Actually if Desideria de Caro had been on the show at the beginning it would have improved the show. She is also very beautiful.
Unfortunately the show was badly written and they eliminated some of the more interesting characters in the half-way part. It pretty much killed whatever the show had that was worthwhile.
Corazón salvaje (1993)
One of the better shows I have seen
This is definitely one of the better telenovelas that I have seen. I wouldn't say it is perfect and it doesn't quite come up to the level of a show like "La Mentira."
Eduardo Palomo was very good on this show and so also were Enrique Lizalde, Ariel Lopez Padilla, Ana Colchero, Claudia Islas and Edith Gonzales.
The show had a good moral to it in that one can grow up poor and still find happiness without discarding their values.
I didn't particularly like certain parts of the ending and if some things had been different this very well could be close to perfect. I don't want to make this a spoiler so I won't say what they are.
The characters were very interesting and the story was good at least until the end and so on balance it should be considered very good.
It is difficult to compare it to a lot of today's telenovelas especially those that are geared to young and even child audiences. These genres involve more modern attitudes and characters and in some ways have advantages over novelas set in prior centuries.
Secreto de amor (2001)
Very Entertaining Telenovela
This telenovela may not rank as one of the all-time greats but it was a very entertaining and relatively fast paced novela. The writing is not the greatest and the plots are not always thought out as well as they could have been. On the positive side it had some good performances by Aura Cristina Geithner as Barbara and Astrid Gruber as Vilma and also featured Carla Ortiz as the beautiful Andrea. Also this novela had the return of Ariel Lopez Padilla to telenovelas since the scandal and this was one of his best performances. On the down side the leads played by Scarlet Ortiz and Jorge Aravenna were not as exactly a compelling couple which a telenovela should have and that may be the biggest weakness of the show. Overall the show had humor in it as well and it featured some comical moments and even the villains didn't always take themselves so seriously and in this case it worked. So overall I would say it is pretty good though not great and I would give it a "B" if I were grading it and at least it could keep you entertained for an hour.