Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

zdarov As another reviewer said, (for the American, anyway) this Norwegian movie is more a fairy tale set at Christmas-time than 'a Christmas movie' per se, and that's part of what's so good and refreshing about it for me. A little girl is separated from her family, does not know who she is, but after several years is driven by a feeling that she's not supposed to be where she is now. I think the dubbing was just fine, I don't get distracted by that usually anyway. I'm so glad I found this while searching Netflix, and hope others will watch and enjoy it. It's beautiful visually, and very relaxing... no violence or frightening physical predicaments.

Heather Santa is a mixture of various Pagan winter gods (Dionysus, Odin, etc.). The modern Santa we're familiar with came out of the works of Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and Clement C. Moore (who most notably described Santa as "a jolly old elf"). Santa, this ancient being, has only seemed natural in movie versions of Dickens's A Christmas Carol as The Ghost of Christmas Present, where he is very clearly the god Dionysus. Until now. Journey to the Christmas Star depicts Father Christmas (Santa) as a gnome-shaman who possesses sacred mystical knowledge - the Santa archetype that existed in the ancient world. Thus, there is nothing hokey/contrived or commercial about this movie.

Patricia Parker Possible Spoiler in here: I would of given this movie a 10 had it not been for the movie being dubbed, I couldn't sit and enjoy as I had wished. The voices were way out of sync with each other making it hard to view. Villains I get are evil to begin with so the over acting of them was unnecessary. The plot, the idea, the concept for the movie was wonderful with an amazing story line to go with it. I would recommend this for children everywhere to watch everywhere. I did feel I was watching another rendition of snow white where Sonya was concerned as there was a woman and she had two other girls under while Sonja was made to do all the chores, they did show the reasoning in that and I was proud of Sonja for choosing to say no and follow her heart. I would like to see this movie redone so it can be enjoyable to sit and watch as well. I was amazed to see this is only 3 years old and they didn't do as most actors do and just have the movie watched by all in all different languages as so many shows and movies are done today and have been for some time now, way more than just 3 years. Good Movie all in all

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Norwegians got lucky as they were the ones where this film was made and already got it for the holidays last year. The rest of the world had to wait one more year, but now this fantastic little tale about the Christmas star has reaches most other countries as well. I see there's a version from the 1970s already which starred a considerably older lead actress. Here the main character is a little girl without family ad friends, who one day manages to escape her captors and make it to the castle where she interacts with some of the servants and the king himself and promises him to help in getting him back his daughter. I assume they picked a young girl for the lead here to make the film especially accessible to children here and all in all I think she did a fine job, especially as she was in almost all the scenes from start to finish. Looks-wise she reminded me a bit of the very young Miley Cyrus.The very few weaknesses in the story are made up for by most of the other aspects of the movie. The costumes are great, including those rags and tatters worn by the poor just like those spectacular dresses worn by the King and his close advisers. Same goes for the visual effects which are sometimes almost too good for a children's movie. The whole sequence with the girl and the northern wind are nothing short of mesmerizing. Finally the cinematography is very well done too. The snowy landscapes make for a great watch, be it in the kingdom or at the North Pole. There were a couple scenes, like those involving the witch's daughter or the love story between the servants, which didn't really add that much, but as the film was still only under 80 minutes long and occasionally they brought some nice comic relief, it's okay they stayed included. Thinking about it again, the daughter of the witch actually makes sense as she's the one (in addition to the incompetent baron) that keeps the witch look too sinister with her rebellious behavior in the first half of the film. It's a good ingredient that assures that the film can even be watched by very small children without really being scared. The meeting between Santa and Sonja was portrayed nicely too and that includes the "head helper" who was always busy and stressed out even if he didn't want his boss to know.Finally, I would like to emphasize who was possibly my favorite character from the movie: the little dwarf girl Mose. She didn't have too much screen time, but I really liked the scenes she was in and I'd totally watch a film that centers on her character and her family. Given her relationship to the bear for example, I'm sure there's a lot to tell and I'd be very eager to watch her in a possible spin off. Back to this one, even if I thought it suffered a bit from the ending unraveling a bit too quickly and lacking credibility, I'd certainly recommend "Reisen til julestjernen" to families with children during the Christmas holidays. The kids will love it, the grown-ups will like it.