The Nativity Story

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

With the enormous worldwide success of Mel Gibson's religious blockbuster The Passion of the Christ, it was inevitable that a lot of imitators would jump on the biblical bandwagon and pray for half the success. So just in time for Christmas comes The Nativity Story, a sugarcoated look at the oft-told tale of the birth of the baby Jesus. Tailor-made for future Sunday school classes everywhere, this by-the-numbers account adds nothing new to the story but has lots of pretty pictures. Tracing the dangerous journey of the divinely pregnant Mary as she travels with Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the film serves as a perfect primer for kids and a nice holiday offering for the grandma who likes to send Hallmark cards "when she cares enough to send the very bland". A movie like this is virtually critic-proof, so suffice to say the actors acquit themselves well, especially 15-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes and Oscar Isaac as the understandably befuddled Joseph. The good guys are very, very good and the bad guys (led by Ciaran Hinds as King Herod) are very, very bad. But with impressive camerawork and authentic locations, it's not a dud. It's just clearly made for no other reason then to cash in on the Christian movie-ment and become a holiday season perennial. Yawn.