This would have been a more powerful movie if not for this meddling kid and his cat.
I don’t think there has been an faith-based animated film from a major studio since Dreamworks’ “The Prince of Egypt,” which was the story of Moses and featured an all-star voice cast including Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Helen Mirren, and Patrick Stewart. Now, Angel Studios releases their first animated feature “The King of Kings,” which is based on Charles Dickens’ book “The Life of Our Lord,” which he told to his children about the life of Jesus Christ. The voice cast of this movie includes Kennth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Forrest Whitaker, Mark Hamill, Ben Kingsley, Roman Griffin Davis, and Oscar Isaac, and a lot of them are powerful in how they develop the voices for the real life people.
The story of Jesus should be told to everyone, and it’s a very important story. Today’s kids should learn about him and what he has taught to people who have sinned, and that’s why “The King of Kings” is given a family friendly tone that’s neither 4-long like “The Greatest Story Ever Told” nor as gruesome as “The Passion of the Christ.” And therefore, the film uses Charles’ (voiced by Branagh) youngest son Walter (voiced by Davis) and his cat to provide comedic affect for children. After-all, they do run their father’s stage presentation of “A Christmas Carol” with their King Arthur adventures.
The mid-credits have kids reviewing the film saying it was fun and the cat was cute. But from my adult standing point, I’m looking at the kid and his cat the same way I was looking at Timon and Pumbaa in “Mufasa: The Lion King.” They start to drag down the story and feel obligatory. And the fact that we see them in Jerusalem and trying to interact with the people around them (even Walter tries to tell the people to not turn against Jesus), it reminds me of the fact about watching T.V, which is we can hear them, but they can’t hear us.
As I’m listening to Isaac as Jesus, Whitaker as Saint Peter, Kingsley as High Priest Caiaphas, and Brosnan as Pontius Pilate, I’m thinking that these actors are able to put all their humanity in their characters. Not that Caiaphas nor Pontius Pilate had any humanity in them. They try to carry the film with their strong commitments, and they’re all universally excellent.
The animation, which was directed by Seong-ho Jang, is good enough to represent Jesus’ story, especially the storm scene when he makes Peter walk on water. And the character designs are wise in the family friendly genre. “The King of Kings” makes some wise choices of not being so violent, but emotional, and it’s impossible to imagine what his followers saw during his crucifixion.
Now these elements would be enough for me to recommend this film, but I still wasn’t too enthralled by the boy and his cat. Their scenes are basically repetitive, as Walter prefers stories about kings and dragons, and as the cat annoys Charles. Again, the story of Jesus should be told to people of all ages, and I value it quite well. But this isn’t really a match for “The Prince of Egypt,” which is a completely different biblical story, but a lot more affective and heavy-minded.
