BY MARGARET A. McGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Selena, the movie based on the short life of the Tejano superstar, follows the well-worn tradition of inspirational tales about musicians who die young.

Just like LaBamba and The Buddy Holly Story, the film struggles with the built-in disadvantage that its subject's died so young her experience on screen can seem thin.

MOVIE REVIEW Selena **1/2 (PG; mild language, brief violence) Jennifer Lopez, Edward James Olmos, Jon Seda. 128 minutes. At National Amusements, Danbarry Middletown, Showplace 8.

Writer-director Gregory Nava copes by turning the movie into a love letter to the Texas native who became an enormous star among Spanish-speaking audiences in the United States and Mexico. Not long before her murder, she won a Grammy and recorded an album in English that was expected to hurl her into the pop music mainstream.

Her music, as reconstructed here, sounds pretty much like Top 40 fare -- big, gushy ballads -- with intermittent flashes of Latino rhythm.

The movie shows us a girl growing up under the influence of a frustrated-musician father who turned his children into a band, then rode herd on them as they traveled the Southwest.

There is no horror story lurking. The movie family is close-knit and happy, only occasionally clashing with the ambitious father. Edward James Olmos is appealing as a loving if hard-headed man determined to see his daughter make it big.

Selena sketches out a tale of unexceptional obstacles: kids gripe about practice; family suffers a financial setback; dad gripes about Selena's abbreviated stage outfits, and a promoter shorts their pay because the lead singer is ''just a woman.''

The biggest crisis arises when Selena falls in love with the band's guitar player (Jon Seda), a rock musician whom Dad considers street scum. But true love rules as the lady glides toward superstardom.

Jennifer Lopez (Blood & Wine) is buoyant as the adult Selena; Becky Lee Meza as the young Selena is as artificially sunny as a soft drink commercial.

On the whole, the movie bogs down in reverence for Selena and her family; I lost count of the speeches about believing in yourself and making dreams come true. There is more fun during performances, when the screen is full of movement and excitement, both from the stage and the audience.