The King of Kings review – Charles Dickens retelling of the Jesus story does a serviceable job

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The famous author tells his son and their cat the story of Jesus in this mixed-bag family animation, voiced by an impressive cast 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 ...
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Drive-Away Dolls review – Ethan Coen’s lesbian road trip is a cheerfully nonsensical caper

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Geraldine Viswanathan lends a quiet seriousness to her role that anchors this otherwise flimsy, silly story

Here is a saucy, silly, queer road-movie caper from director Ethan Coen and his partner, co-writer and co-producer Tricia Cooke; it’s Coen’s second film without his brother, Joel, following his Jerry Lee Lewis documentary in 2022. Drive-Away Dolls is a flimsy lark wrapped up smartly and economically in 84 minutes with a perfunctory (and cheerfully nonsensical) MacGuffiny premise that makes it look like a Xerox of Coen brothers classics such as No Country For Old Men or Fargo. Lead player Margaret Qualley’s twangy down-home accent is moreover something that could have been re-thought in rehearsal. But it rattles along watchably enough. Geraldine Viswanathan nicely underplays her part and Beanie Feldstein delivers the gags with resounding gusto. There’s a nice sprinkling of A-lister cameos, including Colman Domingo, who I wished had been in the action a bit more.

Jamie (Qualley) has just broken up with her formidable girlfriend Sukie (Feldstein) and needs to get away for a while. So she goes on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida with her strait-laced friend Marian (Viswanathan), having hired a car on a one-way “driveaway” basis from a rental company run by a stolid fellow played by character stalwart Bill Camp. Jamie is on a mission to get Marian laid. But they’ve accidentally got a certain something in their boot, which some very unsavoury characters want to get their hands on.

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