The King of Kings assessment – Charles Dickens retelling of the Jesus story does a serviceable job | Motion pictures

This syrupy cartoon account of the lifetime of Jesus (voiced by Oscar Isaac) is narrated, with consummate weirdness, by Charles Dickens (Kenneth Branagh). It’s actually primarily based on a narrative Dickens wrote for his kids (and wasn’t revealed till 1934, a long time after his dying). The concept is that Dickens is telling the story of the New Testomony to his younger son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) and Walter’s impish cat, explaining to the King Arthur-obsessed Walter how Jesus was the actual King of Kings and all that. And so we see Walter and Charles, of their mid-Nineteenth-century garb, wandering via scenes of JC’s life almost two thousand years earlier, from the nativity to the crucifixion – very similar to Scrooge and his spectral buddies in A Christmas Carol as they wander via previous, current and future Christmases. It relatively drags out what’s already a reasonably lengthy working time given the eye capability of its audience.

On a technical degree, it’s a fairly combined bag. The backgrounds and rendering are richly detailed and filled with compelling texture, and the lighting is beautiful. However the character animation is actually ugly: Jesus is given a disturbingly lengthy neck that holds aloft a bobble head with easy, classically white Jesus lengthy silky hair – he seems like his personal motion determine. The disciples and ancillary characters are equally caricatured and exaggerated, with the evil “Pharisees” who persecute Jesus (the phrase Jewish is barely ever spoken right here) designed with pronounced noses.

No less than the voice solid is fairly ace, from Isaac, who brings a properly underplayed high quality to his line readings, via to Forest Whitaker as an earthy Peter and Pierce Brosnan as an unctuous Pontius Pilate who, weirdly, is designed to look similar to Charles Dance. The entire package deal isn’t on a par with the most effective biblical epics, however it’s serviceable sufficient.