WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Sharkflei Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Celia A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

TxMike This is almost a musical, in several cases characters break out in song where we would normally expect dialog. But it isn't excessive and it works well.I saw this on DVD, now I wish I had seen it during the Christmas season for its message. A teenage boy in Baltimore with an unavailable dad and a single mom unable to pay the bills. So he is sent to stay with his grandparents in New York (Harlem). His grandfather happens to be a charismatic preacher, but with issues of his own.I became interested in seeing this for the superb cast, mostly actors I have seen and enjoyed in a number of roles. Forest Whitaker is the grandfather, Reverend Cornell Cobbs. His prize possession is a gold pocket watch with an inscription, a gift from MLK. The grandmother is Angela Bassett as Aretha Cobbs.But my favorite is Jennifer Hudson as the single mom, pregnant at 15. Naima is working at a couple of jobs but needs to come up with $5000 to avoid eviction, and has no way to get it legally. Her acting is spot-on and her singing superb as always.The 15-yr-old son is played well by 16-yr-old Jacob Latimore as Langston. The movie's title refers to a Christmastime Black Nativity presentation at grandpa's church. The ending and reconciliations work a bit too easily at the end, but the message of family and forgiveness is clear. Good movie, better then its IMDb rating (4.0 right now) would indicate. But it has a religious theme so people who object to that will not like it.SPOILERS: When Naimi became pregnant she became a family outcast, and the Reverend paid the dad $5000 to agree to never see her or the baby again. All this alienation ended up with Naimi in Baltimore and not speaking to her parents. At the end of the movie the Reverend confessed his "sin" to the whole congregation and his family, they forgave each other.

Tony Heck "Proof of God's grace is all around you, you just have to open your eyes." After struggling single mom Naima (Hudson) is faced with foreclosure and homelessness right before Christmas she decides to send her son Langston to live with his grandparents. Her father Reverend Cobbs (Whitaker) and his wife gladly take him in even though none of them know each other. Langston wants nothing more then to get back home to his mother and will do anything to make that happen. When a stranger offers to help his life is changed. Even though the cast for this movie is good I was not thrilled about watching this. After watching it my preconceptions were pretty much right on. It wasn't terrible but it was just so over-the-top cheesy that it made it a little hard to get into and enjoy. If this was a made-for-TV movie it would have been OK but the fact that this was a theater release really makes you wonder why this got that kind of distribution when there are so many other more deserving movies that don't get the wide release this one did. Overall, cheesy and nothing amazing. It is a Christmas movie though so that has to be taken into account. I give this a C+.

jordaxxx For one I can't believe such racial titles and movies are even allowed these days. Secondly - the same cast/crew that did this movies past movies have bombed beyond belief so - WHY is everyone shocked?This is certainly no surprise.Let's actually take a moment to analyze this...1) The obviously unnecessary racist title - REALLY guys? The very ones always stating "let the past go", etc is the ones who keep bringing it up and even throwing into the title of a movie - major shock there. Where's Asian Nativity, Caucasian Nativity? Oh that's right, that would be a law suit.2)Casting - Jennifer Hudson? PUKE!!!! she can't even sing much less act. Mary J? SAME THING hahahaha she has what 2 good songs and trying to act? PUKE AGAIN!!!! and yeah the list goes on and on.Just reason after reason for disaster on this abomination of a wannabe movie.

Rah Digga What can I say of this wonderful piece of cinematic gold? I was hooked from the inaugural bundle of photons emitted from that silver screen which darted across the darkened theater, striking my rods and cones, stimulating my visual cortex into effervescent fits of orgiastic black biblical entertainment.Not since Tyler Perry's latest classic have I witness such an incredible ensemble of all black Christian-rivisionism, which adheres in no way to Christian theological scholarship. This film, I'm convinced, along with Tyler Perry's eschatological works, will forever be remembered as the uniting impetus which was portended in the great words of Malcolm X, "There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity."TL;DR - Black science, black "christian" folk customs, tyler perry, malcolm x, fist.