The Star
Summary: A donkey dreams of carrying a king, but instead is stuck with a small family from Bethlehem.
Warnings: Mild cartoon peril.
Opinion: While cute, and relatively mild, the film is aimed at a religious audience but doesn’t do a great job (in my opinion) of addressing the religious aspects of this subject. The creators of this movie wanted to make Mary and Joseph more relatable, more like ‘real people’, and in that respect, did a fairly good job. Joseph can lose his temper or make poor choices. Mary is more saintly, with no flaws shown in this movie, but she still comes across as more human than mystical, which is a nice bonus.
However, the film isn’t really about the holy couple, it’s much more about a donkey running away from a life of drudgery and boredom. He teams up with a strange bird (and other animals along the way) while being hunted by a pack of dogs who are sent by Herod to find and kill the ‘newborn King of the Jews’ (or rather, Jesus’ family, since He isn’t born yet). As the donkey and bird evade the dogs and try to hide Mary and Joseph from them, they grow as friends and decide that their dreams of joining a royal caravan are less important than the friendships they’ve created.
My overall opinion is that this isn’t a bad movie - in fact, it’s probably the best one out there for this age range that includes the true meaning of Christmas. The creators of the film still seemed to play it safe by not getting too strongly into Christian theology, including the gospel (which is the whole reason for the Nativity in the first place!), but it isn’t offensive either. I’d recommend it for young children.
Sequels/Remakes: Nothing. Unless you count the original - which can be found in any Bible!
Educational Value: 2 out of 3 stars. There is some real history hidden in this film, and the story about Jesus is about as important an educational message as is possible to get.
Cultural value: 3 out of 5 stars. This doesn’t get any stars for being popularly known version of the Nativity, but rather gets the couple of extra stars because of presenting the Nativity story for preschoolers (the story itself being extremely important and culturally relevant). However even the vitally important story about Jesus doesn’t give this 5 stars since it really isn’t the main point of this movie.
Age rating: This show is appropriate for ages 5 and older. While aimed at the youngest children, and quick paced enough to hold their attention, it isn’t too ‘baby-ish’ to be a problem for older audiences either. In my opinion, this can easily be watched by older children and they won’t find it insulting.
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