The Star (2017)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Sadly Over-hyped

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

What a great telling of the birth of Christ through the perspective of the animals! It'll be one of our family's must-see movies at Christmas!

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.

I tried to be very optimistic to enjoy this movie but was not able continue after 20mins. am not saying like i hate this movie it just lacks the concept of animation films. nothing fun just a cartoon replica of bible story.

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.