King of Kings

Rated PG • Theaters

It was the best of Tinsel Town, it was the worst of Tinsel Town. Hollywood knows Bible-based movies draw crowds, but the glitz often garbles the gospel. Not so with The King of Kings. First-time director and writer Seong-ho Jang, a veteran visual effects supervisor, serves up one of the best faith films to hit the big screen in a long time. Jang frames his crisply animated production as a bedtime story about the life of Jesus that the 19th-century author Charles Dickens is telling his son Walter. The film is inspired by The Life of Our Lord, a book Dickens wrote for his young children but which wasn’t published until 1934, after his last surviving child had died.

Jang weaves Old Testament events into scenes of Jesus’ miracles and teachings, fashioning a theologically profound presentation of the gospel—all with the voice talents of Hollywood’s biggest stars: Kenneth Branagh, Ben Kingsley, Mark Hamill, Forest Whitaker, Oscar Isaac, Uma Thurman, and Pierce Brosnan. Happily, the film doesn’t stray far from the Scriptural record.

The King of Kings opens with a long scene in which Dickens (voiced by Branagh) performs a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol on stage. Viewers might wonder where the film’s going. (The final scene will also require patience.) Then at home, when Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) asks his father to spin a bedtime tale about swords and dragons, Dickens promises instead “the greatest story ever told.” With encouragement from his wife Catherine (Thurman), Dickens coaxes his reluctant listener into wanting to hear more about Jesus. This coy storytelling technique evokes Peter Falk’s grandfather character in The Princess Bride.

Jesus (Isaac) is born, John baptizes him, and Satan (also Isaac) tempts Him in the wilderness. Jesus heals a blind man, a demon-possessed man, and the roof-dangled paralytic. In angry response to Jesus claiming He has forgiven the paralytic man’s sins, the Pharisees hatch a plot.

“We’ll make [Jesus] fall into His own trap... We’ll give Him a sinner who deserves to die in public and let His people see what He does.” The Pharisees drag a woman caught in adultery and throw her at Jesus’ feet. Not the usual stuff of cartoons, right? And how many faith films bother with the flight of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus to Egypt? The King of Kings uses the family’s escape from Herod (Hamill) to pivot into a lesson about the first Passover. Later, after Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane, Walter forlornly asks his father why Jesus must die. Dickens opens an illustrated Bible, turns to a page with Gustave Doré’s engraving Adam and Eve Driven Out of Eden (minus the sword-wielding angel) and explains creation and mankind’s fall into sin. The entire film is a thoughtfully arranged sequence of moments from Jesus’ earthly life that not only advances Him toward Calvary but answers Walter’s (and viewers’) theological questions.

Some viewers may object to visual depictions of the Son of God or find the Imagination Station–style insertion of Dickens, Walter, and their cat Willa into Biblical events annoying. The final scene was puzzling—initially: The risen Christ stands outside the empty tomb, and Walter is the only one to meet him. End of film. The point, presumably, is to bring home Walter’s personal faith journey. But don’t leave before you watch the end credits: Drawings depict Jesus’ post-resurrection encounters and His ascension.

After The King of Kings, audiences will surely have great expectations of Jang.