Busy Nothings

I went to see “The Nativity Story” yesterday with great excitement because of all the wonderful reviews I read about how every Christian should see this movie and how Biblical it was. I was greatly disappointed.
Sure, some dialog was from the Bible, but the wise men story line with Melchior, Balthazar, and Kaspar wasn’t Biblical. And the “star” was actually 3 planets that aligned to appear as one bright star with a beam of light going to the stable. These three wise men claimed a great deal of screen time, traveling through the desert months before Jesus was born with corny dialogue and arriving only moments after the shepherds.
And speaking of shepherds, only one angel appeared to one shepherd–no heavenly hosts, glory to God in the highest, or anything! Yet even though only one shepherd saw only one angel (a jewish guy in a white robe–not even any heavenly glow!) there were a few more at the stable. They didn’t go running off in excitement to spread the word, either, they just kinda disappeared.
Herod’s soldiers appeared that night to kill all boys 2 yrs or younger which made no sense since the wise men who were just there the day before told him they were looking for a baby that was to be born when these planets aligned. In fact, the movie began with the scene of Herod’s soldiers killing the boys and then flashed back to before Mary and Joseph were betrothed. I didn’t see how the very violent beginning contributed to the movie.
Joseph’s character development was the most interesting part of the movie, Mary–a teenage girl (at least they got that right)–had little or no emotion the whole movie. Don’t know why they decided that for the movie Mary isn’t a decendant of David, either.
I did like the fact that Christmas carols were woven into the music for the whole movie even though it didn’t fit the location or the time period. I just thought it was cool to weave that many carols into a score and make them all sound middle easternish.
Mostly the movie was a reinactment of what most people think–that there were 3 wise men and they got there the same time as the shepherds and there was only one angel in the whole story.
Does it bring out the fact that Jesus was the Son of God? Definitely. But that in itself doesn’t make it a Biblical movie. After all the positive Christian hype, I was disappointed.