King of Kings is not yet another failed aspiration by ginger whinger Prince Harry but an adaptation of Charles Dickens ‘The Life of our Lord’. It was the writers own adaptation of the life of Christ which he read to his children every Christmas with his own instructions prevented it from ever being printed until the last of his children had passed away in 1934. What we have now is an animated feature film with a starry cast of voices that includes Kenneth Branagh voicing Dickens who we first see on stage performing A Christmas Carol whilst his wife and kids are backstage including his precocious son Walter who brings the performance to an unexpected and calamitous end with the boy insistent that the story of King Arthur is better.
It’s only when they are back home that Dickens wife Catherine (Uma Thurman) performs the story of Christ for his son in a bid to persuade him that Christ was both a great leader and truly the King of Kings. To that end the story of the gospel is retold in a series of whistle stop vignettes amalgamated from the four gospels. It’s usual that these recreations of the story of Christ are pretty pedestrian and the spin here is that Walter is featured within the story as though watching everything himself. It’s a device to draw the children who the film is aimed at, into the story far more.
It’s smoothly caramalized animation is easy on the eye and the star studded cast of voices which also includes Pierce Brosnan, Mark Hamill, Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker and Oscar Isaac are as good as might be expected even if on occasion Christ sounds a little like a stoned surfer dude. Out of necessity for a children’s film the crucifixion is sensitively handled and there’s some striking imagery with Christ appearing standing on a stormy sea of Galilee being a particular standout.
It also worth sticking around for the end credits which play out alongside preliminary sketches of characters and settings and though out of necessity for brevity much of the gospels are omitted this is decent kid friendly telling of the story in an increasingly God-less age.
related feature : Bringing ‘Bonhoeffer’ to Life: Todd Komarnicki on Faith, Resistance & Filmmaking
related feature : Hugh Grant in’Heretic’ – like no role he had ever played before
Here’s the King of Kings trailer….
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