This syrupy cartoon account of the life of Jesus (voiced by Oscar Isaac) is narrated, with consummate weirdness, by Charles Dickens (Kenneth Branagh). It’s in fact based on a story Dickens wrote for his children (and wasn’t published until 1934, decades after his death). The idea is that Dickens is telling the story of the New Testament to his young son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) and Walter’s impish cat, explaining to the King Arthur-obsessed Walter how Jesus was the real King of Kings and all that. And so we see Walter and Charles, in their mid-19th-century garb, wandering through scenes of JC’s life nearly two thousand years earlier, from the nativity to the crucifixion – much like Scrooge and his spectral buddies in A Christmas Carol as they wander through past, present and future Christmases. It rather drags out what is already a pretty long running time given the attention capacity of its target audience.
On a technical level, it is a pretty mixed bag. The backgrounds and rendering are richly detailed and full of compelling texture, and the lighting is lovely. But the character animation is really ugly: Jesus is given a disturbingly long neck that holds aloft a bobble head with smooth, classically white Jesus long silky hair – he looks like his own action figure. The disciples and ancillary characters are similarly caricatured and exaggerated, with the evil “Pharisees” who persecute Jesus (the word Jewish is barely ever spoken here) designed with pronounced noses.
At least the voice cast is pretty ace, from Isaac, who brings a nicely underplayed quality to his line readings, through to Forest Whitaker as an earthy Peter and Pierce Brosnan as an unctuous Pontius Pilate who, weirdly, is designed to look just like Charles Dance. The whole package isn’t on a par with the best biblical epics, but it’s serviceable enough.
• The King of Kings is in UK and Irish cinemas from 11 April, and in Australian cinemas from 10 April.
