- Starring
- Kenneth Branagh, Oscar Isaac, Uma Thurman
- Director
- Seong-ho Jang
- Rating
- PG
- Genre
- Children, Family, Faith
- Release date
- April 11, 2025
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
Angel Studios’ animated film The King of Kings draws inspiration from Charles Dickens’ rare gem, The Life of Our Lord—a short story he wrote specifically to share the life of Jesus with his children every Christmas. In the film, Dickens, his curious son Walter, and their feisty cat Willa embark on a journey through the story of Jesus, blending family adventure with timeless biblical truth.
The King of Kings Review
The King of Kings shows us that some beautiful animation and top-tier voice talent aren’t enough to overcome unimaginative writing and inexperienced direction.
Never mind that the latest family cartoon by Angel Studios features some truly beautiful moments that capture the majesty of Jesus’s life or that believers will occasionally be moved during some of the better-told sequences. Unfortunately, audiences will also find themselves maddeningly frustrated by The King of Kings’ almost pathological need to get in its own way.
Told as a tale being relayed to an unruly boy by his father, Charles Dickens, the film’s incessant and needless desire to insert both characters into every aspect of Jesus’s tale, or cut away back to Dickens’ study rather than letting it unfold naturally destroys the film’s momentum and robs the audience of emotionally connecting with those whom the story is about.
While the best animated features connect with audiences of all ages, The King of Kings will make for a great video to treat children at Christian schools or youth groups, but it’s doubtful that it will win over any converts.
P.S. Someone needs to tell these Christian studios to stop their over-reliance on narration and cutaways.
INAPPROPRIATE ELEMENTS
The Passion Ain’t Pretty
- Obviously, there are moments in Jesus’s life where some very harrowing events take place, and you can’t really skip over them when telling Jesus’s story without also gutting the poignancy. Even though these events are handled very carefully in the film, they might be too intense for sensitive children.
WOKE ELEMENTS
Jesus Didn’t Deserve a Whipping, but This Kid Sure Does
- In the opening sequence, the lead child is left to run out of control by his mother who just stands by and impotently tisks as the boy makes a massive ruckus backstage during his father’s live one man show, distracting both the packed audience (in the film) and his father to the point where he has to stop the show.
- When the father goes backstage and tries to get his wife to help him, rather than do anything, she says, “Oh, you know how much he likes King Arthur,” as though that somehow excuses the boy’s egregious behavior.
- After trying desperately and with far too much patience to get the boy to stop, the father finally yells at him. The child then pouts and storms off, and the mother has the gall to look reproachful at the father, who, in turn, feels contrite about his own behavior.
- I can’t emphasize enough how anger-inducingly progressive this sequence is. I was absolutely furious watching it, yelling at the TV (I had a private screener) that the boy needed to be disciplined and that the wife at least deserved a reprimand. It felt like I was sitting in a restaurant, watching a child angrily throw food on the floor because it wasn’t his favorite, and the parents bought him something else instead of addressing his behavior.
- Neither parent learns a lesson from this sequence.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
14 comments
carithewriter
March 28, 2025 at 12:35 pm
I’ll see what PluggedIn has to say before deciding whether this is worth going to see at the movies. Too bad–Angel has usually brough their A-game to movies
Susan W
April 1, 2025 at 9:46 am
Angel Studios isn’t Christian, it’s Mormon.
Ben Reynolds
May 3, 2025 at 5:41 pm
It was founded by Mormons but I think it’s both. You are not entirely wrong saying that.
bencicon
April 15, 2025 at 6:55 pm
Mormons are Chiristians.
Ben Reynolds
May 3, 2025 at 5:42 pm
They are not really.
bencicon
April 15, 2025 at 7:09 pm
Also, wasn’t the Angel Gabriel? Is it weird that it was voiced by a girl?
marshalllangdon
April 17, 2025 at 2:32 am
I’m surprised Mark Hamill did a faith based film considering how left he is
Ben Reynolds
May 3, 2025 at 5:40 pm
Left doesn’t mean not having faith. Let’s not forget that.
[email protected]
April 19, 2025 at 6:44 pm
I didn’t find the cutaways distracting. My 5 year old (who I was seeing it with) was taking cues from the Dicken’s boy and, I think it helped her connect more emotionally with the story.
James Carrick
April 19, 2025 at 7:06 pm
If we all thought the same, the world would be boring. Thanks for commenting and helping others make the best viewing choices for their families!
Gwyne Pearson
April 22, 2025 at 11:54 am
Based on your comment, James, I would probably not have caught the intentional purpose of pushing a narrative by making the father feel “contrite,” concerning his reprimanding his son, while the mother looks on disapprovingly towards her husband and not the son. That’s clearly a sign of our conditioning by the media. We no longer take offense in the feminization or humiliation of men. Most people might ignore how this production by a Mormon based company, means Mormons are influenced by the Mormon faith’s founder, Joseph Smith, who was a Freemason and stole many of their secretive rituals for his man made religion, so it’s not the Gospel as Paul preached, it’s a false Gospel, which sadly most Christians, being illiterate of the Bible, don’t see. We are in the last generation described as apostate, a sign among many of being close to Jesus’ promised return, John 14:1-3. I thank God that the Lord’s prayer, a prophetic prayer, will soon be answered. His Kingdom will come, His will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven. As Paul taught as well, the true church will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air to escape the judgment coming. Jesus promised to the church of Philadelphia:
Revelation 3:10-11, “Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.
I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Karen harris
April 24, 2025 at 4:49 pm
I’m a Christian and my friend and so thought the movie was wonderful, getting better as it went further along. Cute, yet touching on every important part of the story of Jesus in often realistic and very moving ways.
Give these people a break and stop thinking like Pharisees & instead celebrate this sweet pursuit to bring Jesus to families , something our world needs!!
James Carrick
April 24, 2025 at 5:03 pm
I think that it’s unfair to say that I’m thinking like a Pharisee because we disagree on the film’s quality. I’m thinking like a critic… of which I am one.
I’m glad that you enjoyed the movie.
Sweet Deals
April 27, 2025 at 10:58 pm
I think that James dinged the film because permissive parenting is something that personally bothers him a lot, as well as seeing things like men and boys being overly feminized or fathers being shown as useless and routinely disrespected. He’s a father himself after all, so he has a reason to be emotionally invested in it.
I would say that for a film intended for moral education, it’s important to set a good example. It may be frustrating to see the characters misbehaving and the movie implying that the misbehavior is a “good example”. We don’t like to see it when action heroes say their bad choices are justified because they’re the heroes. Some of us don’t like to see misbehavior being coddled either.