Animation and a Creative Story-Telling Twist Highlight "The King of Kings"

A bedtime tale about the life of Jesus, this one is told by a Charles Dickens character and envisioned through the eyes of his little boy.

The Jesus character appears in a scene from the animated feature film "The King of Kings." Image: Angel Studios/screenshot from YouTube.

If you are looking for a movie to take the children to this Easter season, The King of Kings might just fill the bill. From Utah-based Angel Studios, the animated feature film covers the life of Christ from birth to His Ascension back into heaven, hitting most of the key moments of His earthly ministry along the way. And while that approach may be conventional, the means of telling the story is anything but.

A promotional poster for "The King of Kings." Image: Angel Studios/from Instagram.

The picture starts with Charles Dickens staging his classic A Christmas Carol at a London theater - a performance which ends in disaster thanks to his son - before transitioning to his home where the famed English author decides to teach the lad about forgiveness by telling him a bedtime story about Jesus. The elder and younger Dickens - along with the latter's pet cat - then pop up periodically in the story of Christ's life, as the former relates the events from Scripture involving the Savior.

Awkward as that may sound, as you will see in the trailer below, it is actually quite artfully managed by South Korean filmmaker Seong-Ho Jang, the writer/producer/director of the movie. And he landed some first-rate actors to help with the voice work, including Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley, Mark Hamill, and Forest Whitaker. The picture is rated PG for parental guidance as it does feature portrayals of things like the Crucifixion.

Angel Studios is swinging for the fences, so to speak, with this one: the movie will open this weekend in an estimated 3,200 theaters in North America. That is a huge number of venues in the world of a faith-based films, which extremely rarely break the 3,000 mark on opening weekend, so they are evidently confident that The King of Kings is headed for success.