Painful to watch
Eric | Arlington, VA USA | 09/09/2009
(1 out of 5 stars)
"Like many reviewers, I too had fond memories of this as a child. I think that my parents must have only let me watch the first 10 minutes and I liked seeing Buffy as a shepherd boy, or by the time I saw it the network had edited it down from 72 minutes running to fit a 30 minute slot. I showed it to my 8 year old the other day, and he said of the depiction of heaven, unprompted, "this would be hell for me." The cheezy sets with dangling foam balls with visible strings representing planets and stars, the peach colored smoke, and the elementary school costumes and halos were too much to bear. The production values are like something some teenagers with a camcorder would put on youtube. And the songs, the silly scenes of the Johny Whitaker trying to fly, waiting in line for an angel job, etc. just drag on and on and on. It is worse than watching four consecutive strawberry shortcake videos. And it is just plain creepy.
Christian parents may be tempted to get this video because of the theme (stolen from The Little Drummer Boy) that Jesus appreciates our gifts both great and humble. But this is heaven as imagined by Liberace, Lawrence Welk, or Tony Orlando and Dawn--schmaltz, pink smoke, harps and wings, solitude and boredom against a black set. It bears little similarity to the place of joy, fellowship, and tangible, physical, natural beauty that one finds in the Bible.
Stay away from this one.
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