The Dark Herald Recommends: The King of Kings

“My dear children, I am very anxious that you should know something about the History of Jesus Christ. For everybody ought to know about Him. No one ever lived, who was so good, so kind, so gentle, and so sorry for all people who did wrong, or were in anyway ill or miserable, as he was. And as he is now in Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to meet each other after we are dead, and there be happy always together.” The Life of Our Lord - Charles Dickens

You were never supposed to read those words.  

Which means, by extension, that you were never supposed to have seen the film.  However, I think we would all be the poorer if we had not.  

For those who don’t know the story, The Life of Our Lord was a manuscript that Charles Dickens wrote between the years of 1846-1849.  Dickens had a rather limited audience in mind.  

A Christmas Carol was his gift to the world, but The Life of Our Lord was meant to ever and only be a gift for his own children.  Dickens would read it to them every Christmas.  It was his explicit wish that this work never, ever be published. 

When he died, it was passed first to his daughter Georgina, and after her death to her last surviving brother, Henry.  The tradition was maintained, and the work was only ever read to the family at Christmas.

Sir Henry Dickens must have had this memorized. It is impossible to read.

I suspect Dickens thought he himself would be some forgotten flavor of the month scribbler who would not be remembered ten years after his passing.  But by the time Sir Henry Dickens died in 1933, his father had become a towering figure of English literature. Henry’s will asked the remaining descendants of Charles Dickens if they wanted to publish it. 

His grandchildren and great-grandchildren felt it would be wrong not to.

And so, Dickens’ final work was published sixty-three years after his death.

Darklings: What about the movie?

The framing of Dickens’ manuscript presented the director Jang Seong-Ho with a challenge.

A straight narrated voice over, while CG characters acted out Christ’s ministry on Earth would not have kept children entertained and they were always Jang’s and Charles Dickens’ intended audience.

The King of Kings is a computer-animated film that did more with the animation than I was honestly expecting it to.  I’ll admit it, I figured this was going to look like a well-meaning but poorly executed Christian film.  It was the director’s first time directing after all, but I was quite wrong.

Jang Seong-Ho like Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki, has an extensive background in computer-generated visual effects, animation, design, and execution. The days when visual effects were just the kit smashers building models are long over.  Today, they are cinematographers in their own right, pure and simple. They know way more about composition, presentation, and lighting than the new breed of live-action directors that Disney keeps hiring. 

Jang Seong-Ho knew that Dickens’ manuscript needed to be framed in a way that naturally presented the author’s words. So Jang decided to present it as it was.  Charles Dickens acts as a narrator, he reads his manuscript to his children. Or at least one of them.

The film starts with the climax of A Christmas Carol.  Scrooge is bewailing his fate in front of his own tombstone, and then Scrooge breaks character and looks at the fourth wall because there is a racket going on behind him.  The scene makes a flash change, and it’s Charles Dickens on a Victorian stage. He’d been doing a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol, but made the mistake of bringing his family to work.  His son Walter and his spoiled cat Willoughby upstage their father by holding their own play about King Arthur.

Family drama ensues. Walter is the principal hyperactive troublemaker; his cat, Willough is frequently acts as the comedy relief avatar.  Dickens’ wife, Catherine, talks her husband into reading the manuscript he’s been working on. Instead of Arthur, their son shall learn about the True King.

Now the movie follows the life of Jesus from the Virgin Birth to the Resurrection. I am hoping, really hoping here, that there is nothing in this narrative that you didn’t learn in Sunday School. 

It starts as a straight narration with most of that coming verbatim from the Dickens manuscript. As the story of our Lord’s life progresses, we see Dickens, Walter, and the cat entering the story as more active observers. Then, somewhat interactive while in no way changing any of the events.

After the Resurrection, Walter excitedly wakes his siblings to tell them the Good News. Still hyperactive.

For those who were hesitating because of the mediocre critical reception at Rotten Tomatoes, the opinions of mainstream critics can, as usual, be safely ignored to your good profit. 

Charles Dickens’ King of Kings, I strongly suspect, was renamed by a marketing company that was not at all comfortable with the subject.  The reviewers are of the same stripe. The audience score is 98% positive, which is probably more indicative of the taste of my readership.

This is a superb presentation of a master storyteller telling his child the most important story he can ever know.  Jang was masterful in his use of color and lighting throughout. Brighter tones were used in the scenes that take place earlier in Jesus’ ministry, but darker shading is used when they are approaching Jerusalem since He knows what must happen to Him there.

There was an odd little throwback to The Greatest Story Ever Told. A movie with the weirdest cast of stars ever.  It just became fashionable in Hollywood to be in that movie, so you have everyone from Charlton Heston as John the Baptist to John Wayne as The Centurion. If you watch it you can’t help but play Spot the Star.

It’s the same thing with The King of Kings. Kenneth Branagh played Charles Dickens and did it as well as you’d expect.  Uma Thurman was good as Catherine Dickens the wise peacemaker of her husband’s household.  Oscar Isaac had the title role, which he approached as a classically trained professional actor should. I have no complaints at all about his performance. Mark Hamill got in trouble with his remaining fanbase for playing Herod the Great (the nerve of him playing both an Israeli and being in a CHRISTIAN film!!!).

The rest of the cast was kind of random, Forrest Whittaker as Peter, Pierce Brosnan as Pilot, Ben Kingsley brought his villainous best to Caiphus.  The rest were working voice actors who played multiple roles in the film. Although it was a little odd to hear Ray Cummings, the voice of Winnie the Pooh, as a sneering Roman Centurion. 

Regardless, the voice actors all earned their paychecks, nobody phoned it in. 

This film is first and foremost a children’s movie. Consequently, there are occasional breaks in tone for comedy relief, usually by Willough the cat. Kids are not noted for their attention span, so this was a forgivable necessity. It’s not meant for adults.

Darklings: But is it meant for children?

It depends on you as a parent.  What age do you feel is appropriate to answer questions like, “What is adultery?” And “What is crucifixion?” Presumably, if you are a parent, you’ve worked that one out for yourself. And yes, you do see the crucifixion. It’s not The Passion of the  Christ, but it ain’t Veggie Tales either.

This has been a win for Angel Studios. As of this writing, it has sailed past its break-even point and is likely to go on making money for them for the next 20 years. 

In summary, this film has delivered on the two things it was meant to do.  It presents Dickens’ work in a way that children would find entertaining. But much more importantly, getting the message across of what Christianity is, so that children will understand.  This is a superb Christian children’s film.

The Dark Herald Recommends with Enthusiasm (5 / 5)