Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

bobytom When I saw the trailers and posters of it, I just thought it to be just a typical talking-funny-animal film with shoehorned celebrity voices and lame or derivative humor that we normally expect from non-Disney-or-Pixar animated features. However, after seeing it recently, it was somewhat slightly better than I thought. Not great, but just alright. ----------------First off, the idea is very potential. I mean, we are talking about the old but beloved story about the origins of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. Unfortunately, the way they handled that tales isn't that great, resulting in a rather derivative and predictable underdog plot, where donkey named Bo wants more from his life, but accidentally ends up with Maria and Joseph on a quest to arrive at Bethlehem and help them to give birth to a new king, while at the same time save the couple from a hunter with two evil dogs. But the biggest problem with the film is that it rather wants to be more of a funny-animal cartoon with goofball antics rather than a more serious story about Christ's birth. Maybe the idea of telling the story through the point-of-view of the animals could have worked. I mean, there are many good films with the talking-animal aspect, like 101 dalmatians for example. But the way it did there isn't that strong and they probably aimed it too much for children, resulting in a rather flat and lazy storyline.Granted, it does have a huggable sense of heart when it comes to the couple and I found the ending to be rather sweet and really emotional. I also did like the humor a bit. Some scenes were worth the chuckle, but it does get rather juvenile at times like in the scenes of the cross-eyed goat and the pigeon doing some dumb and out-of-place twerking. Boy, how executive-driven it is, isn't it? I did hear the English version of it, but I only watched it entirely in Finnish dub. I feel it sounds a little better and more enjoyable than the original one, so maybe I did find it to be a bit funnier than I expected. Otherwise, the story is rather flat and sometimes childish. -------------------I personally didn't get annoyed by any of the characters, but there are way too many of them. Bo and Ruth, the dogs and maybe the villain are fine, but maybe not so terribly interesting. Mary and Joseph, on the other hand, are quite lovely and probably the most relatable, since their struggle to have a child of God is somewhat believable enough. The rest is not that important and it's so blatant that many of them are for the sake of name recognition. Dave the pigeon could be enjoyable, but I swear Bo could have figured out the things just by himself. The camels are predictably pointless and even the three farm animals, including the surprisingly talented singing horse, at the end are easily forgettable and useless. Yes, even in both original English and Finnish dub, the actors tried their best and I did enjoy their performances at times, but sadly, it doesn't save the one dimensional and many of the pointless characters in here. ----------But I was pretty surprised how good the film looks. Yes, the budget is rather tiny compared to any mainstream animation and it may not be perfect, but still. Designs are very fine. Animals look very good, but it can get a tad generic. Humans were drawn well too, especially the couple looks really beautiful. I was even more impressed with how the lighting and textures, especially the fur of the animals, look believable and how the artists were able to create a time travel over 2000 years back of how the ancient cities and other places look newer and much lusher than now. On the other hand, the animation and the rendering aren't so strong and smooth and that goat looks honestly kinda ugly and seems to reflect too much on the budget. Even with that, the Canadian animators tried their best with the low amount of money they had. ----------------It could have been something great, but it was obviously targeted at kiddies. Sure, the animation is very nice and it has some great heart, but unfortunately, it ain't Prince of Egypt.

rcb-48150 It amazes me the legths some people will go to bash or destroy a religious film or anything religious. This is accurately based on Christian faith and the birth of Jesus. Like it or not, it happened and there is nothing you can do to make it not so. The movie is well done and entertaining. It does have a few scary/dark moments with the dogs. However, there is nothing here that compares to the violence found on tv, most movies, video games and in songs kids listen to today. At least this ulimately has a positive message and gets the story of Jesus to a few more eyes and ears. Maybe that's why some don't like it. Worth watching!

Animated Antic I'll be completely honest here and just go out and say that "The Star" is not a movie for me. I can say that there is an audience for it, but it's probably not going to be a very big one as this is a Religious film. The film is essentially a retelling of the Nativity story with animals, and yeah that's basically about it. There's really not much to go off from this film. It's essentially pretty boring, but it's harmless. It really just went in one ear and exited the other leaving not much of a big impact, though it did have some terrible moments.There's really not much to the story. It is, like I previously said, a retelling of the Nativity story though it does have some animals in it. Essentially, Mary (Gina Rodriguez) gets blessed by God to deliver the messiah and she and her husband Joseph (Zachary Levi) depart for Bethlehem to deliver the child along with a donkey named Bo (Steven Yeun), a dove named Dave (Keegan-Michael Key) and a sheep named Ruth (Aidy Bryant) while a conflict occurs where King Herrod (Christopher Plummer, though honestly he could have been played by anyone else) sends out an executioner and his two dogs to kill Mary. And that's about it. It's nothing really that special.This is the third animated movie released in 2017 by Sony Pictures Animation who had a really, really bad year. I wasn't particularly fond of "Smurfs: The Lost Village" and the less that can be said about "The Emoji Movie", the better. Although this film is nowhere near as bad as their previous film, it is not a good flick either. The story, for the most part, is pretty boring. The film has a really dull, dragged out pace and also tries to throw in some modern day humor rather than attempt to make it timeless which is something that I cannot stand in animated movies. As for the animation, it's okay at best. There's nothing really to brag about as it looks passable for my standards though I will admit that I did like some of the landscapes. The characters are also not exactly memorable either. Bo is just a bland and boring optimistic protagonist, Dave is the annoying comic relief, and Mary and Joseph are just nice but have nothing to stand out about them. The one exception was the character of Ruth who I did like as she had a charming likable personality and Bryant's performance was really well done. However, the same cannot be said for Keegan-Michael Key who really annoyed me as Dave. I honestly think that it's kind of an embarrassment for him because while he was in this boring and bland Nativity story retelling, his comedy sketch partner, Jordan Peele made a bigger splash this year with "Get Out". Yeah, he really needs to do something bigger than this.So, there's really not much to brag about "The Star". It's there for those that want to see it and if you don't you can easily ignore it. I know I didn't put a lot into this review though honestly, the movie gave me nothing to work with either. It's just bland and boring, but it's easily harmless. I'll just leave it there.

Bulldog1721 After watching this movie, I felt like this movie really had a great way to tell the Christmas story which we have heard all of our lives. But, this was something totally out of the box into the animal's perspective of that "night divine".I think kids will like it b/c of the comedy and the characters. The adults will like it b/c of the way it can introduce the story of Christ's birth to those who have never known about it.The animation was flawless, the accuracy was on point, the jokes were kid-friendly (a little delayed) but overall, a fantastic balance of what the kids want out of the story, and the lesson that the parents want to the children to get!Fantastic movie! Great for kids and parents alike!