Angel Studios makes its first foray into animation with The King of Kings, an unusual faith-based retelling of Jesus as narrated by Kenneth Branagh playing Charles Dickens The Snapshot: Oscar Isaac is a gracious Jesus, but this animated retelling of Jesus’ life is more about Charles Dickens’ retelling of the story rather than letting the lessons of Easter speak for themselves The King of Kings 5 out of 10 PG, 1hr 44mins. Faith History Animation. Written and Directed by Seong-ho Jang. Starring Kenneth Branagh, Oscar Isaac, Roman Griffin Davis, Uma Thurman, Jim Cummings, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan and Mark Hamill. Now Playing at Film.Ca Cinemas, Cineplex Winston Churchill & VIP and Cineplex Oakville & VIP. For an animated movie about Jesus and the Easter story, the character of Jesus has a surprisingly small presence. However, Angel Studios’ first-ever animated film The King of Kings is still a wholesome and earnestly told story that will stir the faith of its audience. The King of Kings tells the story of Jesus’ life under an unusual framing device: the life and epic of Jesus, instead of told directly, is being narrated by Charles Dickens (voiced by Kenneth Branagh) teaching the life of Christ to his son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis). Why? The narrative is loosely based on Dickens’ real-life children’s novel The Life of Our Lord, which has been a lifelong inspiration to new director Seong-ho Jang. Even though this can be an easy to understand teaching tool for those learning the Easter and Resurrection story for the first time, it’s also a distracting premise that often takes away from the grandeur of learning about Jesus himself (voiced with grace and tact by Oscar Isaac), which is by far the more interesting movie. Dickens’ story structure does provide creative approach to sharing the history of Jesus, but it comes at the heavy price of adding a lot of filler content that doesn’t directly recount this pivotal moment in church history. More than half of the film’s run time are devoted to other parts of Christian and Jewish history, including Christmas, the book of Exodus, and - Adam and Eve? Why? These sidebars of other Bible stories don’t add anything to this Easter film. The film needs greater focus to emphasize the power of Jesus and the impact of his legacy. The most compelling scenes are the ones that show Jesus’ childhood and young ministry - a rarely told part of the story. Despite highlighting the moral lessons of the gospels, the marketing for The King of Kings suggests it’s about Easter and the Passion, while in truth it’s a rushed retelling of most major events in Jesus’ life. Thankfully, when Jesus is the focus, many elements work well together to depict Jesus at key points. Isaac’s voice, the musical score, and Branagh’s graceful narration all evoke warm power. This is when the movie both teaches and entertains most effectively. Unfortunately, while serviceable for young children, the animation and visual effects are cheap and feel rushed. Many of the characters have slow, stiff motions that look poorly rendered - though many of the sets and backgrounds are better looking. Several scenes are clearly unfinished, with the mouth movements of characters not matching the heard voices - or worse, the characters are facing away from the camera, so we don’t see them talking. Faith-based animation has been well-produced for decades: look at Dreamworks’ masterful The Prince of Egypt, or 2017’s The Star, or the several Veggietales movies. Despite having been released more than 20 years ago on smaller budgets, all of them have more sincere scripts and higher quality production values. The King of Kings can be enjoyed as a simple introduction to the character of Jesus for new audiences. Sadly, it’s goofy set up in Charles Dickens’ office and flat, supporting celebrity voice cast won’t have much of an impact on the adults.