‘The Star’ takes us on a journey through the most important biblical event through the perspective of the animals encountered on the journey. The movie had so much potential to be a blockbuster but we all know Christian movies are not widely received like that. ‘Star’ tries to recreate one of the most important moments in the whole bible, the birth of Jesus. You do not have to be Christian to know about the nativity scene, but I feel like the importance of this event is lost with the focus now on the animals and what’s happening around Mary and Joseph instead of focusing on the fact that the King of Israel is being born.
The Christian feature follows Boaz the donkey (Steven Yeun), an adventurous donkey who knows there is more for him in the world than being a miller’s donkey. His main dream is to be in the King’s caravan, but he finds his purpose by Mary’s side. Accompanying them is Dave the dove (Keegan-Michael Key), Bo’s eager best mate. And lastly, we have the chatty sheep named Ruth (Aidy Bryant), Ruth’s a loveable lost sheep who everyone can get behind. The trio travel with Mary (Gina Rodriguez) and Joseph (Zachary Levi) in order to guard and protect them from Herod’s assigned assassin and his two pompous mutts (voiced by Ving Rhames and Gabriel Iglesias).
On the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem Bo and his squad encounter some trouble from the Roman assassin and his pets which builds the teamwork between the three animals. While Bo, Dave and Ruth tag along with Mary and Joseph, the wise men are also guided to the foreseen king by the iconic star and their trusty camels. There was a crazy resemblance between the black wise man and Mr. Incredibles sidekick, Frozone, but that’s just something I caught.
The camels voiced by Tyler Perry, Tracy Jordan and Oprah Winfrey invite the element of humor and knowledge to the cartoon. The camels were the best part of the movie for me as Oprah’s character Deborah, drops some scripted gems throughout the film which are relatable today.
Even though there is no biblical recognition of a donkey in Mary and Joseph’s travels it appears that the donkey is becoming the international known means of travel for Mary and Joseph. The movie does stick true to the events of the bible and follows the time line to a tea. Which ticks the biblically correct box. It was a quaint movie with great aspects children would love.
The movie had all the right elements to make it a great Christmas Blockbuster without the help of Santa. We had our villains, the blood-thirsty soldier and his two daft dogs. Our courageous and zealous hero’s Bo, Dave, Ruth, the camels and some extra animal power. The animation shows an element of friendship and team work, forgiveness and kindness within the animals. Even our two villain dogs get to witness the prophecy that is Jesus’s birth.
In keeping with the biblical truth, the animation managed to give its characters biblical names. Ruth is just like her biblical counterpart. Someone who left all she knows behind to follow a God she did not know about and along her way she meets her Boaz who she becomes very fond of. Bo also shares the same love for mankind as his biblical namesake.
It can be very difficult making a Christian movie in today’s world and I trusted DeVon Franklin as a fellow believer to create something impressive. Unfortunately, I feel like it was only targeted to children. Which made it miss the ‘I wanna watch it again’ mark for me. It was good for the moment but lost its charm on me. I wasn’t ‘Prince of Egypt’ wowed, which is a movie any age group can get behind. With such a star studded cast you would expect nothing but gold but I believe we only managed to make silver.
It is not a movie I would expect to watch twice. However, what kept me watching was the soundtrack with songs from Fifth Harmony, Mariah Carey and Kirk Franklin to name a few. Which brought together the whole production with new and old Christmas songs. The movie seemed to rely heavily on the cast and musicians and this may have been detrimental to the story telling segment of the whole cartoon.
For many Christians, this movie showed great promise to ignite the nativity story in the world. It should have been a movie that captured all audiences to come view the most spectacular event of all time. But it just missed the memorable factor.
I guess I will just have to be satisfied with reruns of Prince of Egypt as it is still one of the best Christian Animation Movies till this day.
PRODUCTION: (Animated) A Sony release of a Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, the Jim Henson Co., Franklin Entertainment, Walden Media, Affirm Films production. Producers: Jennifer Magee-Cook. Executive producers: DeVon Franklin, Warren Franklin, Brian Henson, Lisa Henson. Director: Timothy Reckart. Screenplay: Carlos Kotkin; story: Simon Moore, Kotkin. Camera (color). Editor: Pam Ziegenhagen. Music: John Paesano.
WITH: Steven Yeun, Keegan-Michael Key, Aidy Bryant, Christopher Plummer, Ving Rhames, Gabriel Iglesias, Gina Rodriguez, Zachary Levi, Kristin Chenoweth, Kris Kristofferson, Kelly Clarkson, Patricia Heaton, Anthony Anderson, Mariah Carey, Tracy Morgan, Tyler Perry, Oprah Winfrey.