The King of Kings Parent Guide

At Easter, two things normally happen – kids eat too much sugar and seasonal movies hit the big screen. This year, theaters are unusually crowded with options for those who are devotionally-minded: The Last Supper, a feature length account of Christ’s final days, and the final season of The Chosen are both out in wide release. In addition, Angel Studios is debuting The King of Kings, an animated film geared to kids.

The King of Kings takes an encyclopedic look at the life and mission of Jesus Christ (voiced by Oscar Isaac). The script shows the young Jesus teaching in the temple and then jumps to his ministry, where he teaches, heals people, raises the dead, and casts out demons, all while gathering followers and alarming those in power. As anyone familiar with the basic outlines of Christ’s life knows, this ultimately results in his arrest, torture, crucifixion, death, and resurrection.

I must give points to the movie’s screenwriters for making the effort to contextualize the story of Jesus’s life, teachings, and death within a larger framework. Instead of simply stringing together the best-known tales of Jesus from the New Testament, the script also flashes back to significant Old Testament accounts of the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt and the fall of Adam and Eve, teaching the Christian concept of redemption in a way that can be understood by an elementary-school-aged child. Youth pastors or Sunday School teachers may well find this film to be a useful adjunct to their instruction. However, I’m not sure it hits the mark for larger audiences.

I feel churlish complaining about a movie that tries so hard, but this production has issues I can’t ignore. The first is the frame narrative, which is one of the clunkiest I’ve ever seen. The story unfolds as Victorian novelist Charles Dickens (Kenneth Branagh) dramatically relates the life of Christ to his naughty son, Walter (Roman Griffin Davis). Walter is insanely annoying during the first half of the film and, honestly, it’s simply absurd to have a Victorian child popping in and out of Biblical scenes. I understand that the writers want a child’s-eye perspective of Christ, so why not use a Judean youngster? Eliminating the Dickens clan would save twenty-plus minutes that could be better used for more New Testament stories – and would allow Mary to encounter the resurrected Christ, instead of giving Walter the honor.

The King of Kings also suffers due to its second-rate animation quality. The characters are weirdly stylized with large, angular heads on pencil-thin necks, and have the herky-jerky walk that accompanies low-end computer animation. I realize that not every studio is Pixar and I don’t expect Disney-quality animation from small production companies. The frustrating part of this movie is that there are some truly beautiful moments: Christ’s baptism is a moment of dazzling light and hope and the episode where he walks on the water is truly dramatic. Knowing that this film is capable of more makes the Saturday-morning-cartoon feel harder to take. In fairness, I should point out that this film is a big upgrade from Veggie-Tales, so if that’s what your kids are used to, they won’t have any complaints about The King of Kings.

As for negative content, all parents or Church leaders need to keep in mind is canonically accurate violence. There is a scary demon, an ominous Satanic voice, a flogging that is heard instead of seen, a fight with fists and swords, and a crucifixion. Viewers who know their Bibles won’t be surprised by any of it and the violent scenes are carefully sanitized to cause as little alarm as possible to younger viewers. If you want to make Christ’s redemptive mission accessible to kids, then The King of Kings will work for you. If you want a movie that offers a profound experience, you might want to go elsewhere.