by James Coulter

Mainstream religious films are hard to come by. In recent years, Hollywood has released a few good films like Prince of Egypt, Passion of the Christ, and Noah. Otherwise, most Christian flicks serve a rather niche audience, especially with such controversial films as the God’s Not Dead franchise.

Enter Angel Studios, a faith-based company with the aspiration to push faith-based films and shows into the mainstream. Their most popular and successful property has been The Chosentelevision series. Now, the studio has released its first animated film, King of Kings. But will this animated film about Jesus live up to its royal name? Or, unlike Christ, will it remain dead and buried?

King of Kings begins in Victorian England. Charles Dickens is giving a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol when his performance is interrupted by his rambunctious King Arthur-obsessed son. Charles snaps at him, but quickly relents his harsh reaction. To cheer his son up, Charles shares with him a story that he has been working on: an adaptation of the Gospel story. Through it all, father and son both learn the importance of grace and forgiveness.

King of Kings is a very basic adaptation of the Gospel story, telling the story of Jesus Christ from his birth to his resurrection. If you’re a Christian or are familiar with the Christian story, you pretty much know what to expect.

The only unique aspect about this adaptation is the framing device of Charles Dickens telling the story to his son. Essentially, it allows Charles to serve as the narrator. And sometimes it also involves his son imagining himself in the story.

This telling of the story emphasizes the theme of forgiveness, focusing on Jesus’ teachings forgiveness, as well as him exemplifying the virtue like when he defended a woman from being stoned for adultery. And, of course, there’s the fact that Jesus died to forgive humanity of its sins.

One scene I found particularly enthralling was Baby Jesus and his family fleeing from Herod. Most telling of this story have Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt before Herod orders all newborns to be killed. But in this movie, Herod’s soldiers are literally banging down the doors to the stable. It’s a real tense scene, and how Jesus’ family escapes proves to be quite surprising.

I also loved how Charles would occasionally deviate from the main narrative to share other Bible stories like the first Passover and the Garden of Eden to help explain the main Gospel story. I especially love how the Genesis story is conveyed through classic Gustave Doré illustrations. (Any children’s movie that exposes kids to fine art like Doré is a plus in my book.)

Otherwise, this film is rather unremarkable. The animation is decent, and it manages to tell the story of the Christian Gospel in one-and-a-half hours. But the condensed run time essentially forces the story to focus on hitting every plot point of the Jesus story without really doing anything to flesh out Jesus and the other characters.

Here’s a good example of what I’m talking about: there’s a scene in the movie where Charles names the twelve apostles, all of whom walk across the screen after being introduced. But aside from maybe Peter, none of them are given any real character development in the film, and you’d be forgiven if you forgot which character was supposed to be who. 

It’s ironic this movie mentions King Arthur. Because it reminds me of Excalibur, the 1981 King Arthur movie by John Boorman. That movie also focuses more on telling the barebones story of King Arthur and less on developing its characters, who merely exist to act out the roles they are meant to play in the narrative. The result is a film with plenty of style but no real substance.

Overall, this movie does a basic job recounting the story of Jesus Christ. If you want to use this movie to introduce your children to the Gospel, they’re sure to find it somewhat entertaining.

However, if you want to watch a better adaptation of the Gospel, better movies exist like the 1979 Jesus film or even Passion of the Christ. And, of course, Angel Studios also distributes The Chosen, which, as a television series, has enough time to tell a proper story and develop its characters. As for children, shows like the Superbook cartoon or even Veggietales provide more entertaining and engaging adaptations of Bible stories.

As for this film? I’d recommend watching it once it comes out on DVD and streaming. Otherwise, I’d save your tickets for a better animated film.