The Star

"The Star" is an animated story of the first Christmas, with cartoon animals as the main characters. I think it's a good production, and one that may help toddlers and tykes get some inkling of the Christian origin of Christmas. But for most over that age, it probably rings more like an "Ice Age" or "Madagascar" adventure for animals. The humans in this instance do have much bigger parts - especially Joseph and Mary, and a fictitious monster man. So, there always remains a thin thread that leads the animal adventures toward Bethlehem.

Except for the monster creature, the story is mostly accurate in following the Bible story of the birth of Jesus. And, the producers did a fairly good job in the art work of depicting the land and settings realistically. Unfortunately, they transposed 21st century social ways on an ancient setting. So, we have some wisecracks by Joseph at times. And, we see his temper and impatience at times. As for the animals - they have all the modern cultural behaviors and speech. It may be light-hearted fun and funny, but all of this detracts from any sense of awe, reverence or anything special taking place.

The animals talk about the star, but then the mayhem and pursuit of the story picks up again, and the real meaning of the story is subjugated by the comical and adventures of the animals. So, as a cartoon and animated picture, "The Star" is good and entertaining. But for getting the message across of the first Christmas, it misses mostly with the primary audience it might have reached.

This was quite an entertaining take on the birth of Jesus as experienced by various animals done on computer animation to both humorous and dramatic effect. The traditional holiday songs are well done in scoring some of the picture. Of the celebrity voices, I noticed Tracy Morgan's from the first time I heard him, while my movie theatre-working friend also noticed Oprah Winfrey's. In summary, The Star is worthy of the tale it tells on film.

I took my 7 year old son to see this film and we had a great time. He was laughing out loud at the animals and their antics. There is a scary soldier that was pursuing Mary and Joseph, but not too scary. If you are interested in the traditional Christmas story for your family...this is just the ticket. Great animation. Funny characters. Happy and uplifting. I wish they would make more kids movies like this!!!

I saw a preview of this on utube and immediately made sure my grand babies went to see it. I guess I'll use the same word as previous reviewer who thought it was INDOCTRINATION. Yep, I guess I've wanted my kids/gk to be indoctrinated to Christmas being about Jesus. It's hard "fitting it in" with all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Was proud to be there with ALL 5 of them (ages 4-7) Animation was OK, not like Disney of course, but it kept the kids attention. It has some funny parts. It's all from the perspective of the animals, and it takes a while to get to where the star is leading. I hope the kids got it with the typical noise in a movie for children. But either way, I'm glad they can see a movie that tells the story of Jesus at Christmas time. Better than most of what is offered to them on TV and theatre these days!!

The oldest review is rather shameful...it's not indoctrination to tell kids the truth and Mary was a virgin, no need for the quotes. The movie's good and worth seeing. It's great that it got a theater release, considering the junk in Hollywood today. Also I don't agree that it trivializes the story at all.