Movie Review: Christmas With The Chosen: The Messengers

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

A unique and really fun movie experience. 

This movie is strangely structured and though, the parts are excellent they don't always come together to create one whole. This movie starts with a bunch of musical performances featuring various popular Christan artists performing classic Christmas hymns. Between these performances are brief sermons on the names Jesus has been called in the bible and the significance of each one. This takes up the majority of the film. After that comes what is essentially a theatrically released episode of The Chosen TV show. All of this is very well done, but because of the way this is set up, the majority of the movie can feel like pre-show entertainment before the new episode. 

The music is excellent. These Christmas hymns have stayed with us so long for a reason. They are great songs. These Christian artists are incredibly talented, and it should come as no surprise that they do such an excellent job with these great songs. 

The episode portion of the movie is also excellent and has everything that has made the series so popular. This is not a neat or sanitized version of the Christmas story. There is little here that is made to look pretty or like it is on the front of a Hallmark Christmas card. This is an important part of what makes this work so well. It lets us fully see that Jesus' birth was not what this world would call attractive. This was a dirty barn and despite Mary being a virgin, the birth process was the regular human birth process. Yet through this seemingly mundane event, the whole world was permanently changed. That God would choose his own son to be born like this says a lot about his character and about how different he sees the world from how we do. This movie also presents Mary and Joseph as real people. Though they are people who have an incredible amount of faith in God, they are also human and not flawless. This makes the story feel more real and personal instead of just a nice story we heard in Sunday school. 

This is an excellent film, even if all the parts don't always make one cohesive movie.