The Worst Film Ever

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is more blasphemous garbage, God's judgement is coming.

Religious movies can be outstanding. Children's movies can be outstanding. The combination may be tricky, but is certainly manageable (see "The Prince of Egypt" for reference). Sadly, "The Star" fails in both regards. There were redeeming elements, but the film as a whole lacked direction and polish.In an audience half comprised of children, laughs were sparse, and hinged almost entirely on butt jokes. To be fair, there were some clever jokes that depended on the viewer's familiarity with scripture, but they were few and far between. It didn't help that the movie couldn't decide if it wanted to be funny, sacrosanct, suspenseful, or none of the above.The major liberties taken with the story were for the sake of giving the movie an element of fear and suspense, and added little to the movie's message. Critical plot-altering moments came regularly out of left field with a single line of explanatory dialogue and no narrative support. With some focus, surely the writers could have done better, but their performance here is reflective of Sony Pictures Animation's trend of rushing out unfinished products. The soundtrack was quite good in general and is probably worth owning by itself. Aside from an uninspired performance of "His Eye is on the Sparrow" by Casting Crowns, the other renditions of classics were beautiful and fitting.I'd hoped for more from what could have been an interesting angle on the Christmas story, but I doubt it will be added to our collection. While not unpleasant, it left much to be desired.

"The Star" is an American English-language animated movie from this year that premiered here very recently, so you could definitely say it is one for the holidays. It's not too long at under 1.5 hours, but features still a whole lot of known actors that you may have come across on other projects. Maybe you won't recognize their voices, maybe you will. But you sure will recognize their names. This film here takes us into the Bible by telling us about the nine months before the birth of the Christ as a bit of a fable with speaking animals and an ancient background as this one plays over 2 millenniums in the past. The good news is that I enjoyed almost all the animation aspects here. There was one especially beautiful shot that may have been among the greatest of the year when we see the humans and animals moving forward while also seeing the beautiful star-studded sky. The music was fine too overall with some beautiful songs.But sadly, the film had also far too many mediocre and forgettable moments that made this one seem way too long for its own good and that is even more shocking as it really wasn't a very long film at all. It easily could have been kept at under an hour I believe. On the one hand, there were just far too many (animal) characters in here that had hardly no impact at all on the story. Quite a pity. They were included for one or two funny ("funny") moments and then disappeared as quickly as they appeared like the ones at the end at the location where Mary gives birth. And as for the approach to the comedy here, it was not as successful as I hoped. Here and there, there was a solid moment including a witty joke, but most of it was really just loud and over-the-top sadly and on a level where just the little ones would enjoy it. And this means quite something when I say or write it because it is a statement coming from somebody who is off the opinion that quality animated films are as much for grown-ups as they are for children. Anyway, the ending was somewhat better again and I liked how they included the subject or forgiveness with the two dogs, but also weren't afraid of killing off a really sinister character. By the way, the two dogs could really have their own movie as a sequel. They were one of the better components here.All in all, however, I did not like the film as much as I hoped I would. Donkeys sure are the greatest thing ever (next to guinea-pigs), but the thing I found distracting here is that the German voice in the version I watched did not satisfy me at all and I wasn't too happy in general with the dubbing also for other characters, especially the animals. Let me add too that I am an entirely nonreligious atheist, so I won't go too much into detail about the biblical and more serious contents here and their accuracy. I would just say that the dramatic plot was never really as good as I wanted it to be. So yeah there are some glaring weaknesses here and it may not be the greatest effort by Oscar-nominated director Timothy Reckart at all. Then again, this may be more the two writers' fault than the director's. I for once can only say I am surprised how much attention this has received from the Annie Awards. An Oscar nomination seems possible, but I think it really isn't that good. Watch something else instead.

'The Star' is a delightful animated adaptation of the story of the Nativity of Jesus, aimed for younger children. It includes a lot of entertaining animal characters (some of which accompanied Jesus in the manger when he was born) and some songs to make it appealing to young and old alike. While not exactly Disney-standard, there a lot of redeeming qualities that differentiate 'The Star' from other uninspired adaptations.This film follows the story of Bo, the ambitious donkey working for the town's miller who wants to be part of the Royal Caravan one day. One day he manages to escape with the help of his old friends, who at last recognizes the beauty of Bo's dreams. By focusing on Bo instead of Christ or the story as it is written in the Bible, I was initially afraid that this film was going to be out of focus. You might argue that it still is so it can amuse its very young target audience. But I believe that at in its heart this film is still about Christ, the film just uses Bo's story to give a fresh perspective on the narrative of the Nativity we all know so well.This point is worth some emphasis. 'The Star' focuses more on Bo than on Christ, more on Herod's buff soldier who tries to hunt down Joseph and the pregnant Mary than Herod himself, more on the camels carrying The Three Wise Men on their journey following the Star to the place where the Messiah is born in Bethlehem than on the Three Wise Men themselves and so on. Yet, when taking into consideration its target audience of young children, most of them not older than 7 or 8 years, it wouldn't have made a lot of sense to portray the story of the Nativity as it truly was, with all of the persecution (of Christ by Herod) and bloodshed ("the massacre of the innocents") the real story has. If you want a loyal adaptation of the story of the Nativity for your children, unfortunately you have to look elsewhere, but if you want a lighthearted, fresh and new perspective this is as good as it gets.A lot of comic relief is supplied by Bo's amusing and loyal friend, the pigeon Dave. The villain, as those familiar with the Bible should know, is Herod, voiced by Christopher Plummer. The voice acting, it must be said, is not outstanding, in the sense that none of them really stand out, not even Mariah Carey as the horse, Rebecca, or Oprah Winfrey as one of the Three Wise Men's camels, Deborah. Nevertheless, all of the voice actors manage to get the job done satisfactorily.To conclude, I would like to add something about the film's religious theme and inspiration. Even if you're not a particularly religious person, you cannot fail to appreciate the epic grandeur and poetic beauty of the biblical account of the Nativity, such as the metaphoric and symbolic nature of the Star and the ironic facts that Jesus, the son of God, was born in a manger of all places and that Bo does end up working in a royal caravan by accompanying Joseph and Mary. The point the film wants to emphasize is that we are all following our own unique star, like Bo and Joseph and Mary, even if some of us don't know where it is leading us or going to lead us yet.I would recommend 'The Star' which offers a fresh new perspective to the story we all know so well, obviously keeping in mind all of the liberties in takes. To their credit, the producers do try to preserve all of the Christian values and significance that are to be found in the biblical account of the Nativity (if not the Bible itself). And that's arguably the most important thing in an adaptation like this film.