The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Blu-ray Review

The highest compliment paid to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is how inoffensive it is. Nothing here will upset the sensibilities of anyone, not even the Herdmans, the “worst kids in the world,” who steal school lunches and throw snowballs. It’s safe. Very safe.

It’s easy to get caught up in the church angle that’s so potent in this movie. It feels preachy because it is (acting as a PSA for the church at times), but the message it’s preaching matters more. Best Christmas Pageant Ever concerns the well-to-do church parishioners looking down on the poor and through their interactions, becoming accepting of the wild kids whose parents work double the hours at a local factory. It’s neat, tidy, and simple, also implausible, if not in the traditional form of the Christmas movie; that’s just how things work in these movies.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is run by the kids, who have the most heart

Inclusion and acceptance matter to this story, otherwise borrowing – liberally – the basic story construction of A Christmas Story. A kid narrates the story, looking back from adulthood, and set in a nondescript 1970s, the nostalgia thrives.

But this movie never has the energy. It’s listless, and its idea of terribly behaved kids is never sold. They’re standard big screen bullies, and once their home life is glanced, the focus isn’t on their behavior but the reasons for it. Best Christmas Pageant Ever falls into holiday-glazed drama, with the pressure on star Judy Greer (playing a mother taking over the community Christmas play for the first time) to make this production work. She has so few issues though. What the script presents as trouble barely qualifies as stress inducing.

The real stress comes from the other parents, with a Costo-sized offering of smug character archetypes, from those frozen into tradition and others who see themselves as betters. Those folks become the friction, yet it’s artless, with no character beyond their childish, unfounded superiority. The central conflict isn’t entertaining, nor is it particularly funny.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is run by the kids, who have the most heart. By the soppy, maudlin finish, any grievances are lifted, however briefly, much as how the Christmas holiday works for so many. Then everyone is happy and accepting, which after building these awful adults as super-villains, doesn’t even feel logical.

Drenched in sepia tones to suggest the intended nostalgia, Best Christmas Pageant Ever is doused in warmth. The only primaries that escape come from the various Christmas lights. The rest is nearly monochrome orange.

Black levels appear faded by design, at times a bright gray, but mostly muddy and muted (but thankfully without any visible artifacting). This doesn’t cause any issues short of losing image depth, and the contrast, where possible, brings the imagery some energy. All of the lights help here as well.

Best Christmas Pageant Ever isn’t swimming in detail or definition either. Faces appear flat without texture, and the resolution doesn’t add much. The cinematography favors a hazy appearance, although the intensity varies wildly between scenes. It’s as if the visual design is meant to copy A Christmas Story, but thankfully, the encode handles the haze without issues.

Atmos is a bit of overkill for this dialog-driven comedy, but the sense of space is intact and excellently done. In any crowd, clapping, talking, and ambiance head outward into the surrounds. All of the channels engage with excellent precision. School sessions fill with clashing lockers and other sounds. Best Christmas Pageant Ever has the best sounding snowball fight to date which each ball heard whooshing past.

Director Dallas Jenkins and producer Kevin Downes provide a commentary. Bloopers and deleted scenes join a handful of basic featurettes.

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 36 full resolution, uncompressed HD screen shots grabbed directly from the Blu-ray: