The King of Kings, 2025.
Directed by Seong-ho Jang.
Featuring the voice talents of Oscar Isaac, Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Griffin Davis, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley, Mark Hamill, Ava Sanger, Jim Cummings, Fred Tatasciore, Dee Bradley Baker, James Arnold Taylor, Vanessa Marshall, Mick Wingert, Imari Williams, Frank Todaro, and Millicent Miereanu.
SYNOPSIS:
The story of our Lord Jesus Christ as told by Charles Dickens and seen through the innocent eyes of a child.
Writer/director Seong-ho Jang’s animated feature The King of Kings (sadly not a biopic about WWE legend Triple H) tells the life story of Jesus for children, mainly from a child’s perspective. It’s a 100-minute Sunday school lesson that doesn’t approach the material in a fun, complex, or dazzling (the animation is largely expressionless and merely competent) way for younger viewers, mostly content running through Jesus Christ’s (voiced by Oscar Isaac with a soft voice and gentle warmth, capturing his essence) famous miracles without placing them in a greater context. It’s “and then Jesus did this” for roughly 80 minutes, before the inevitable crucifixion, which, while sanitized here, is still heavy for kids.
At times, there is uncomfortable messaging that if you don’t put your faith in Jesus, you get what you deserve (a ship captain navigating a nasty thunderstorm is asked to walk on water toward Jesus, but starts to sink for this very reason), even if the grand message is about kindness and forgiveness. It’s trying to be kid-friendly; the issue is that the life story of a guy who ended up betrayed and nailed to a cross is an awkward fit for PG animation. It’s not Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ, but it’s also not far off.
The filmmakers (with Rob Edwards and Jamie Thomason credited for some additional writing, and Hoseok Sung as the co-head of story) seem to think that implementing a narrative device stolen from Charles Dickens’ life, that every Christmas he would read to his children his life story of Jesus (a book that remained unpublished at his request for a long time, until the death of his last remaining children) every year on Christmas is enough to recontextualize this as a kids movie.
Here, Charles is voiced by Kenneth Branagh, married to Catherine (voiced by Uma Thurman) and finds himself trying to settle down his King Arthur-obsessed hyperactive son Walter (voiced by Roman Griffin Davis) by telling the life story of Jesus Christ, which in this film is meant to be the inspiration for that book. This means that during every single biblical miracle, the film either cuts back to the real world every 10 seconds or sticks Walter in the story so he can shout about whether or not Jesus will fight a dragon. That’s the one joke this movie has, which even children will get tired of by the second or third time. Beyond that, the goal is to illustrate how so many legendary stories have been lifted from the story of Jesus, and how a child might react to the miracle-working highs and the fatal lows, losing out to resurrection.
There isn’t much in terms of story and characters. This is hollow and possibly the most Angel Studios movie to have existed. Not even glorified voiceover cameos from greats such as Mark Hamill, Ben Kingsley, and Pierce Brosnan amount to much. The point isn’t to tell a narrative but to rush through all this as quickly as possible. The King of Kings is drained of anything that resembles Charles Dickens’ storytelling and humor, and one imagines that when he told stories about Jesus to his children, they were filled with more personality.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
