Things are changing and I’m not gonna be in here forever. That star means something.
In this movie from Sony Animation, the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth is retold from the perspective of a bevy of adorable barnyard animals. Sony Animation assemble an all-star *ahem* cast, including Tracy Morgan, Tyler Perry, Oprah, Steven Yeun, Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Plummer, Ving Rhames, Gina Rodriguez, Keegan Michael-Key, Aidy Bryant, Kristen Chenoweth, Kelly Clarkson & Mariah Carey (as a terrified chicken); hell, they . . . I mean, um, HECK, they even got Joel Osteen to cameo. If you know me and my general reaction to mass-market faith-based films at all, I’m about to blow your mind. Because I actually liked this movie a lot.
I know! I’m as shocked as you are! But this is actually quite good, several steps above the usual God’s Not Dead style Christian movies. The animation is really good, both in terms of just being visually interesting and also in terms of character work. The entire cast shows up and is actually trying. Tracy Morgan got several big laughs out of me as one of the Wise Men’s camels; Steven Yeun is really excellent as our main character, irrepressible donkey Bo who dreams of the royal caravan and one day getting to carry a king on his back (bet you can see where THAT’s going). Christopher Plummer only has a couple of scenes as Herod, but he’s treating the material with absolute seriousness and a lot of menace. And Aidy Bryant as Ruth the flockless sheep is a pure delight. Coupled with the great character animation, she made me laugh a lot. On the whole, I was pretty impressed with the ability of this movie to marry wise-cracking slapstick animals with the Nativity story. It gets a lot of laughs and is very silly at times, but it’s also pretty reverent to the main story, even humanizing Mary & Joseph, wonderfully played by the very down to earth Gina Rodriguez & Zachary Levi, by giving them some scenes of real discouragement and fear as they contemplate the heavy burden they’ve been given. Somehow, the movie manages to juggle those very different tones. Okay, sometimes it is just too silly, but then it is for kids, and as a jaded adult, it did make me laugh several times. It’s not Pixar, but it’s surprisingly good. And, look, I’m a Christian, but surely even those who aren’t will find it a little refreshing to have a fun Christmas movie for kids that isn’t just the same old Santa Claus nonsense. It’s pretty weird that a movie about the birth of Jesus can genuinely be called a refreshingly unique Christmas movie, but I think it can. This little fable isn’t quite miraculous, but it’s got some fun sparkle. 3 stars.
tl;dr – energetic movie somehow balances slapstick talking animals and the birth of Jesus to create a surprisingly good, quite entertaining movie; the excellent cast elevates things. 3 stars.