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The marketing for “The King of Kings” flaunts that it is the first theatrically released biblical animated feature since 1998’s “The Prince of Egypt.” But to even mention DreamWorks’ hand-drawn masterpiece in the same breath as the latest Angel Studio release is nothing short of blasphemous. The makers of “Sound of Freedom” move into family animated productions by distributing director Jang Seong-ho’s loose adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “The Life of Our Lord,” which the 19th-century author wrote for his children.
To appease his youngest son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis), a rambunctious boy obsessed with King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable (a myth in turn derived from the story of Jesus and his apostles), Dickens (Kenneth Branagh) spins the yarn of the one true king who didn’t need a sword to command a group of loyal believers: Jesus Christ.
As Dickens goes over each of Jesus’ miracles and other pivotal moments ahead of his gruesome death, young Walter walks into the biblical passages as an unseen figure watching from the sidelines and becoming enraptured by the tall tales. Though there’s plenty of effects animation in the form of storms, diabolical gusts of wind and torrential rain, there’s little aesthetic personality to “The King of Kings.” Conspicuously anglo human characters resemble the generic design often seen in low-rent CG fare produced overseas: large heads with pristine skin and pronounced facial features.
To explain Passover and the exodus, as well as Adam and Eve’s exile from paradise, the filmmakers briefly use graphic animation that more closely resembles book illustrations, but that’s as far as formal inspirational goes in this South Korea-produced project, ripe for a Sunday youth group but not much else. After the main credits, a message featuring roughly a dozen white children praising the movie asks attendees to promote it and encourages them to scan a QR code on the screen (a practice that has been part of Angel releasing since “Sound of Freedom”).
Save for a few lighthearted interjections by Walter and his mischievous cat Willa, “The King of Kings” plays as a sanctimoniously dry and serious account ending in Jesus’ eventual crucifixion. Jang does spare young viewers the gore of the protagonist’s flagellation. Even as Jesus is shown nailed to the cross, the points of incision on his palms are blurred and blood never enters the frame.
Like most other faith-based films, messaging precedes entertainment or artistic value here. And that’s one chief reason why comparing “The King of Kings” to something as vibrant, engaging and potent (both visually and emotionally) as “The Prince of Egypt” seems disingenuous. It’s not that one expects laugh-out-loud, broad humor in a bible story, but the heavy-handedness overwhelms the picture.
For comparison, “The Star,” a 2017 animated feature about the birth of Jesus from the perspective of the animals present, leaned into slapstick humor — a strategy that seemed to connect with young viewers. “The King of Kings” is less successful in wrapping up its grave intent in a palatable vehicle, as it doesn’t try to make Jesus relatable. Both of these movies feature voice casts involving rather famous actors whose participation feels puzzling given that some of them, like Pierce Brosnan in “The King of Kings,” only have a handful of lines.
A brief moment halfway through “The King of Kings” almost feels like its reaching for more complicated, introspective ideas. After Jesus saves a woman from being stoned by making the crowd aware of their own sins, Dickens tells Walter that some people use the word of God to try to manipulate others, but before he goes on with his rant, his wife (Uma Thurman) walks in the room with a batch of cookies and the story moves along. Who knows what the version where Dickens gets into more hard-hitting questions about religion could be. As it stands, “The King of Kings” is a serviceable if uninspired take on a story told countless times in just as varied formats.
