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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Megalopolis review – Coppola’s passion project is megabloated and megaboring

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Cannes film festival
Francis Ford Coppola’s question – can the US empire last forever? – may be valid but flashes of humour cannot rescue this conspiracy thriller from awful acting and dull effects

Everyone who loves cinema owes Francis Ford Coppola a very great deal … including honesty.

His ambitious and earnestly intended new film, resoundingly dedicated to his late wife Eleanor, has some flashes of humour and verve. Jon Voight’s scene with his bow-and-arrow shoots a witty dart. The film’s heavily furnished art deco theatricality sometimes creates an interestingly self-aware spectacle, like an old-fashioned modern dress production of Shakespeare.

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