Angel Studios has recently been making a dent in Hollywood. Conservatives deciding that there are “no faith-based” movies in Hollywood (I recommend they watch ANY Tyler Perry Madea movie to retort that thesis). Making big headlines for the surprise hit from last year’s Sound of Freedom, this independent studio has also put out The Shift, the successful show The Chosen, currently on its fourth season, and countless other films and tv shows for the Christian crowd. Their latest film The King of Kings continues the trend as the children’s animated film tells the story of Jesus from birth to resurrection.
The King of Kings is based on Charles Dickens’ book “The Life of Our Lord” which he wrote for his children way back in 1846 (published in 1934 sixty years after his death) in which the film focuses on a young Charles Dickens who is dealing with his impatient son Walter. His son is infatuated with stories of medieval knights and dragons being good in the face of evil. Walter loves stories of King Arthur and stories of knights and kings, so one night Charles asks his son if he knows about the “King of Kings” as the story of King Arthur is based on the New Testament. Then Charles proceeds to tell Walter the story of Jesus Christ, all the way from his birth one night in Bethlehem all the way to his crucifixion.
As Charles is telling the story, director Seong-ho Jang makes sure to visually include young Walter as well as the family cat Willa as characters within the background of all the historical events that happened in the life of Jesus Christ. It’s an interesting narrative choice to keep the story’s momentum going, even if it’s interrupted by the “wows” of a young child or the meow of a cat for comedic purposes. For the most part though even if you were barely awake in Sunday School, you pretty much know how the entire film will go as people of all faiths pretty much know the story of Jesus.
With this being an Angel Studios film, The King of Kings feels like evangelical propaganda for the most part. It’s hard to wonder who the film’s true audience is. Sure, it’s a cartoon and geared towards children, and it makes sure to include young Walter, Charles, and the family cat in many scenes to try and appeal to a younger crowd. However, The King of Kings doesn’t give you the Dreamworks or Pixar feel to it. It feels like an animated film geared towards people who go to church more than 4 times a week no matter the age. In fact, as the film gets towards Jesus’ crucifixion we see Jesus’s crown of thorns, and whip marks covering his entire body, not necessarily good with the young crowd no matter how much they love their bible and there could be some young kids who freak out for a scene or two. Keeping up with conservative evangelical Christian teachings, The King of Kings also serves as a DEI film for white audiences when it comes to the creative choices for how Eurocentric they think people from the Middle East would have looked a few thousand years ago. It appears that the only people of color who exist in the film are background characters or servants, which continues a problematic trend in some biblical films. Of course, the film is made for Christians in Kansas, but can we at least pretend to have a correct historical representation of Jesus at some point from these folks? After all, they want more Christian films, let’s make them correct!
The animation of The King of Kings is great and works rather well. Director Seong-ho Jang and his Mofac Studios do a great job bringing this story to the big screen visually. In addition, the film has a pretty STACKED voice cast which includes Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamil, Pierce Brosnan, Roman Griffin Davis, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley, Dee Bradley Baker, and Oscar Isaac to name a few. For such an “independent” studio Angel Studios is, they sure have some deep pockets to get a bunch of A-Listers to do voicework for their film.
Overall, The King of Kings isn’t reinventing the wheel when it comes to exploring the life of Jesus. The goal of the filmmakers and the studio seems to be to try and get the next generation to learn about Jesus, but truthfully those that are going to see this film were already in the bag for Jesus. But the film caters to its audience very well, and will probably be another box office smash and will easily recoup its budget as this audience “religiously” sees these types of films.
The King of Kings is now playing in theaters nationwide.
