The Star

The film believes its myths and propagates them through some of the cheesiest God pop you could ever dread to hear.

This thin storyline is padded out with subplots that showcase a bizarrely star-studded voice cast.

Why has nobody thought of this before - the Nativity retold for kids via knockabout animal animation and gloopy pop ballads? Oh yes, because it's an absolutely dreadful idea.

Some future shelf life in seminaries seems likely, but as festive treats for kids go, it's like asking for a selection box and being force fed communion wafers instead.

Delivers ... a preachy, bland and fastidiously inoffensive kind of ersatz fun - a little like those knock-off Christian video games from the early 1990s that mimicked existing hits, but which made you pray for people instead of shoot them.

Unless you have tiny, religious children, it's probably best to avoid it.

Neither the humor nor the animation ever rises above humdrum.

The Star is a wonderful retelling of the Christmas story but with a fun twist: the animals who inhabit the story drive the action.

Not a lot of enjoyable moments for adults to engage with but families may enjoy watching, as it is a kid-friendly telling of the birth of Jesus.

A weird and off-putting story conceit that doesn't add anything new to one of the most often-told stories of modern times.