Chasing the Star

Technically speaking, this may possibly be the worst moving picture ever made about anything, but certainly among the worst about the early days of Christianity. The quality of camerawork, lighting, writing, editing, and direction in Chasing the Star are all awful. The director makes admirable efforts to place the action 2000 years back but then populates his cast with modern haircuts and actors who spout dialogue using everything from Valley Speak to Brooklynese to British English. Some deliver formal speeches with hilariously informal accents. Others drop most of their consonants. One guy says, "I shuh ge' home" (translation: "I should get home"). The devil says, "Shirley, I do' wanna invoke the wrath of such servants" (translation: "Surely, I don't want to invoke the wrath of such servants"). A character chides another for speaking of death, but chooses sarcasm to convey his disappointment: "That was joyous talk, just joyous," he says disapprovingly. One priest states the obvious, that they've fallen out of favor with the sinister caravan master, to which another priest responds with a snide, thoroughly 21st-century Americanism: "Ya think?"

The filmmakers seek to tell the story of the sacrifices made by the Magi -- who some say were astrologers and some say were kings -- in the early days of Christianity. Given the excitement Christians would presumably associate with the actual discovery of the messiah in the manger, it's odd that the movie dwells for more than 40 of its 96 minutes on the Magi sitting in a dark tent waiting for a storm to pass, a storm it's much later suggested was put in their path by the devil. Note that occasionally dead bodies are seen with no explanation of who they were or how they got there. The movie ends in a quick sequence of unrelated and incomprehensible cuts, including a brief closeup in which a weeping Herod (why is he weeping?) contemplates suicide (why?) and then decides against it (again why?) while the devil seems to be watching (how'd he get there?). Shirley reading the New Testament would be more rewarding.