Metacritic reviews

Modestly entertaining and uplifting version of a “greatest story” that has proven as malleable as it is timeless.

Whitaker's performance is the rock here. Even when the confrontations and evasions get a little ridiculous, he's neither wholly saint nor sinner, but something like a human being.

Lemmons advances this story with straight-faced conviction, orchestrating narrative and spectacle with a grandiosity that proves easier to admire from a distance than it is to engage with onscreen.

The singing is terrific, particularly whenever Hudson belts out a number (and there is really no other way to describe her powerhouse vocals). But the story is trite and predictable, if heartfelt.

For anyone who prefers their assertive homilies to crust over like a syrupy sweet, this loose adaptation of Langston Hughes's beloved holiday tradition will come on like a dream fulfilled.

This holiday extravaganza with an all-star cast has a lot of failings. But it seems likely to tap into the audience’s enthusiasm for uplifting entertainment.

While Hudson's and costar Mary J. Blige's soulful, stirring musical numbers are absolute dynamite, the rest of the film's story is larded with enough soap opera twists and heavy-handed schmaltz that you'll feel like you're being bludgeoned with a hymnal.

Count Black Nativity as a more noble than notable effort.

The movie doesn’t weave religion into the familiar structure of a comedy or melodrama. Instead, everything works in service to the sermon at the core. For most audience members, that will either be the primary draw or an inescapable drawback.

Directed as if it were an after-school special, with listless performances and musical numbers (Mary J. Blige shows up as a platinum-wigged congregant), Black Nativity is as simple and condescending as Hughes' work was complex and demanding.