t'Jacques G

This is a fine, family-friendly musical movie. The music isn't memorable, but the campy Bollywood-inspired musical scenes are enjoyable to watch. However, the music doesn't really elevate the Nativity story. If you have watched Prince of Egypt or King of Dreams, then you know how effective songs can be for elevating a bible story. The Christmas hymns in this movie are really pretty, and I might ad them to my Christmas music playlist, but the original songs are forgettable. There are a few things in this movie that irritated me to no end. For instance, the word "magi" is used in both plural and singular, but it's only a plural word! "Magus" is the singular! Also, Joseph uses the term "immaculate conception" to refer to the virgin conception of Jesus, but the "immaculate conception" refers to Mary's own conception without original sin. Jesus's conception is the "incarnation". Herod's son is styled as a Roman, but he was also a Jew! These little mistakes demonstrate how little care the movie-makers put into some details. However, there's still a lot to like in this movie. Rizwan Manji's performance is fun. The highlight of this movie is the story created for King Herod and his son is moving, and it really demonstrates the contrast between corrupting power and benevolent power. King Herod's villain song was especially interesting (and Antonio Banderas's performance great), where he says "Mine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory", and he is carried by his soldiers in a cruciform posture. Ultimately, this movie had a few great moments and fun choreography, but it was bland. For a $3 rental, it's worth it.

Even though it's described as a "comedy", this movie is not very funny--but I don't mind that. This is more of a coming-of-age film, which gives a very graceful and accurate treatment of the awkward situation of becoming an adolescent as a Catholic. Is this movie accurate? Yeah. It accurately displays Catholic teaching about sexuality, especially how these beliefs are taught to teenagers. I remember getting the "boys are microwaves girls are ovens" talk, myself. It also accurately portrays how many teenagers respond to these teachings. Which is, largely, with confusion. And this confusion drives each character to behave differently. Some characters sincerely follow these teachings, some preach them without practicing, and some quietly defy these teachings to discover their sexuality. The tone is pretty understated and the pace is kinda slow, but it's an easy watch. If you went to Catholic school or attended Catholic retreats for teenagers in high school, you can probably relate to this movie. I know I did!