King of Kings (Seong-ho Jang, 2025)

King of Kings is neither the best nor the worst animated Jesus film I have seen. Whether that is an endorsement depends largely on the target audience. After the unexpected commercial success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, marketing Christian movies has taken one of two forms: trying to make a movie that would be recognized as Christian to its target audience without turning off everyone else, or trying to make a movie so Christian that those who don’t typically go to the movies at all are galvanized to make an exception.

Given the mid-credits montage of toddlers pleading with audience members to take out their phones and scan a bar code that will donate a ticket so that everyone can see this movie, I am reasonably sure we are in the second category. And there is nothing wrong with that. Sure, that demographic may already have DVDs of The Jesus Movie, Jesus of Nazareth, The Ten Commandments, The Miracle Maker and a host of Veggie Tales to play for Easter. But just as Christian kids don’t want to be excluded from candy on Halloween, they might also not want to be deprived of the movie-going experience simply because the majority of films are off-limits to them. I am not being intentionally snarky when I say on that level it is totally fine, even if I can’t imagine anyone outside the target demographic buying a ticket even if every other theater in the multiplex is sold out.

As far as the film itself, the frame tale of Charles Dickens suffering from writer’s block seemed like such an odd choice that I restarted the movie once to make sure I had not gotten reels mixed up. Does Angel Studios have a Christmas Carol movie in the works (or completed) that it is cross-promoting? Once the film gets into the narrative proper, the returns to the framing tale do little more than provide transitions for different portions of the gospel story…with one exception.

I found it an interesting choice that this film includes the scourging of Jesus (the thirty-nine lashes). Sure, by the time the animated Christ is on the cross, he has the sad/reposed demeanor more common in such vehicles than is a more realistic depiction of flayed human flesh. That said, the soundtrack is harrowing enough, and the cries of the Dickens tot of “They’re hurting him!” was the one place where I wondered if the horror elements of the story were too present to do much more than traumatize those it is trying to indoctrinate.

Then again, one need not be a toddler to be traumatized (or confused) by the most gruesome aspects of the Easter story, but that’s a post for another time. I give King of Kings credit for not turning the crucifixion (or the Passover) into G-rated ideas, even if they must always be presented with G-rated images.

I am slightly more likely to watch an Easter classic at home than go to the theater, but for those who want Easter to be a special occasion that warrants an infrequent trip to the cinema, I am happy they have something that is not cringe-worthy to throw their Passion Dollars at.