Chasing the Star

Seriously folks with respect to human idiosyncrasies some of the reviews must have been posted by the cast and crews family and friends. Perhaps, the same ones who donated the use of their living room for the filming of the going away party scene for the movies novice Maji. As commented on by another reviewer, the acting is unfortunate, and the story for want of a better term, is a thinly woven tale that borrows more from biblical language than from biblical facts. All of which, is made even sadder by the movie's insulting lack of concern for period accuracy. The costumes were not far above what one would expect from a high school drama project, and the set design was poor enough to be shameful. The afore mentioned party scene literally takes place in a suburban living room, replete with curtained and paned windows, a slipcovered sofa with end tables, and a dining room table and chairs straight out of a Sears catalogue. Either the film makers are ignorant or they believe that the rest of us are.

...where do I begin? Either a High School project or a 2nd year college exam. The language is awful, it's a mixture of old and new English, the filming is all modern motion, and the settings...oh myy, more like 19th century than first century. This movie could have been a great retelling but apparently it must have had a very very low budget. A waste for actress Yancy Butler, she must have donated her time. I hope someone else decides to remake it with better dialogue, acting, and sets, and most of all, heart.

Whoever said this was biblically accurate has clearly not read the Bible.

Also, the acting was horrifically bad. By the time one of the "wise men" said, "It is what it is." I knew the movie was irredeemable.

We were hoping to love this based on the other reviews. Raised in church, went to seminary. Wanted to find a new Christmas favorite. Sadly, this is not it.

Absolutely, positively a total waste of time.

This came up as suggested for Christmas, and oh how I wish it hadn't. I have no idea what the point of this movie was. Each of the magi except for balshazar were made out to be irreverent and.regretful. Herod's portrayal was more appropriate for a psycho thriller. It felt as if at least 70% of the movie was flashbacks about each of the magi's individual and quite pathetic pasts. The acting wasn't worthy of B grade. Some characters had lovely accents, but most sounded like mechanics or truck drivers, completely off from the characters they portrayed. There were also quite a few pointless plot elements that were just stupid and inappropriate, and in some cases cruel and mean. It felt like the writers and directors of this film were disturbed or really wanted to put out a dark drama, but for some reason chose something sacred to defile instead. I am all for introducing humanity into modern day retellings of historic and biblical events (hello, The Chosen). But this was beyond awful. The never ending dark and sinister music, the teenage angst style behaviors of people who were supposed to be wise men... it was all just really bad. The cover image of this movie showing the beautiful star and 3 camels needs to be scrapped, because it reflects nothing of this movie's dark and sinister tone. That image is deceiving.

I cannot fathom in my wildest dreams why anyone would give this more than a couple of stars. The acting was horrible, the fictional story completely implausible, there was no passion, no inspiration, and no resolution to the drama invented for the story. You will not see the magi get anywhere near Christ. The films spends most most of its time telling the backstory for each of the three magi, all of them traumatic and completely without anything that would draw a viewer to them. Did I mention it is completely fictional? Oh, and don't miss the references to Herod's incest with his sister. Ugh. A really gross waste of time.