I watched The King of Kings yesterday, and I enjoyed it for the most part. But before I talk about the things I liked about the movie, I will talk about the negatives first. I generally like to talk about the negatives first so I can end on a positive note.
While I enjoyed this movie, one thing I disliked was Walter’s behavior in the beginning of the film. His father (who is Charles Dickens) is trying to recite his story A Christmas Carol on stage, but Walter and his cat make a huge mess of things. Walter runs around with his sword onstage saying he’s King Arthur, and while they are backstage, Walter’s cat scatters Dickens’ manuscript everywhere on purpose. Dickens’ other two children are backstage playing around too, but they are not as noisy or reckless as Walter. Meanwhile, Dickens’ wife, who is backstage with the children, allows their reckless behavior to continue and makes up excuses for them. It all comes to a head when Dickens takes away Walter’s wooden sword and yells at him, and Walter cries and walks away.
I think this scene was supposed to make you feel sorry for Walter, but I didn’t feel extremely sorry for him at all. The truth is, he was misbehaving. So were the other two kids. They were all playing backstage, making a ruckus, while their father was trying to work and make money to support the family. The children shouldn’t have been backstage to begin with, but I suppose the writers wanted some conflict between the father and son in the beginning, and this was what they came up with. Now Walter is angry at his dad for yelling at him and telling him he can’t have his wooden sword back (Dickens does give the wooden sword back to Walter, but I honestly don’t think he deserved to have it back at that point).
The second concern I have may sound strange, but another thing I disliked was the character design for Barabbas. In the movie, Barabbas is depicted as a man with the darkest skin tone of everyone else in the whole movie. From what I could see, Barrabas is the only colored person in the movie, and I noticed this very quickly. Why on earth would the creators of the film decide that the person with the darkest complexion in the whole movie would be Barabbas, a murderer and thief? This seems to indicate a racial bias of some kind, which was distracting and very disappointing. I watched the movie with my mother, and after leaving the theater, she told me she had noticed the same thing.
I wonder why no one working on The King of Kings noticed this.
Now for the positives. I did find the animation to be unique and it was very well done. It’s nice to have a different style of animation now and again, and it’s nice that the Christian media is growing more frequent and a little more diverse in regards to animation.
Another thing I loved were scenes depicting Jesus’ miracles, such as when he opened the eyes of a blind man, when he walked on the water, and when he raised Lazarus from the dead. I did tear up at some of these scenes, and it was great that the movie showed Jesus leaving the tomb, and showing Walter being so happy to know that Jesus had risen, that he had to wake his siblings up and tell them the good news. That was one of my best scenes in the movie, in my opinion. But there is also a scene where Charles Dickens helps his son find his cat, and they give each other a hug afterward, which was one of the most heartwarming scenes in the movie for me. I also liked that in this movie, you have Walter’s father, a storyteller, telling the biblical story of Jesus to his son. I think that’s very sweet, and I like how their vivid imagination places them right into the biblical events.
Overall, I found the movie enjoyable. I do find it strange that they made Barrabas the darkest skin toned person in the whole film. However, there are heartwarming and sweet scenes, and the animation is pretty good. With that said, I would give this movie four stars. I would probably give the movie five stars if not for the odd character design choice for Barrabas, and the fact that he was the only other character in the film with a darker skin tone. That simply rubbed me the wrong way after leaving the theatre. Other than that, the movie was great.
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