Animated movies about the Bible are slam dunks for the faith based crowd. For those exhausted youth pastors needing a wrinkle in their sermons, you can take a bunch of kids to sing and dance, and maybe learn a thing or two about the Lord and biblical history. David’s story is perfect for animating away the scary violent stuff; problem is, maybe Phil Cunningham and Brent Dawes the directors animate away a little more than that.
This Christmas season we go back a few descendants from Jesus, to his ancestor David (Phil Wickham). David’s Old Testament tale is epic for the uninitiated. He started from humble beginnings, the 8th and youngest son of Jesse and Nitzivet (Miri Mesika), shepherding the sheep while his brothers had higher ambitions. Things all changed when prophet Samuel (Brian Stivale) anointed David the next king of Israel. This puts the humble shepherd and lyre player into the orbit of current king Saul (Adam Michael Gold), convinced he’s still anointed by God but drunk on his own power and ambition. Oh, and a big, bad Philistine named Goliath (Kamran Nikhad) might make an appearance.
It’s Christmastime, and regrettably Angel Studios didn’t have a movie about Jesus ready. So clearly the edict came down from on high for writer director Cunningham/Dawes: make David’s story parallel Jesus’s story. At the start of David’s legend, no problem! The song and dance opener and him defending the sheep from a lion: that’s cute, exciting, and could have definitely happened. David also had older brothers, and was anointed by prophets. Jesus and David both got close to a fearful boastful king with their beautiful lyricism. The movie only focuses on David’s rise to power (hilariously for me, stopping before having to explain to the kids who Bathsheba is), which the directors mirror with Jesus gathering followers and trying to lead a people to the promised land (in this case Israel’s throne).
But here’s the rub. David is Old Testament. Any Jesus like New Testament nonviolence he uses is only when debating Saul so he doesn’t get killed. Otherwise, David’s rise to popularity came from war and battle. David vs. Goliath is in everyone’s lexicon. The movie makes that moment rightly a key touchstone for the boy: a very violent one for an animated faith based film. Which the film then starts walking back as David ages and starts coming closer to the throne. The ending is preposterous, pushing us toward a David caricature that doesn’t exist except to peddle propaganda to children, when it doesn’t have to! Watch the Prince of Egypt: that’s also a violent, scary tale of power and family, that finds a real, interesting point of view inside of a famous Bible story that completely makes sense. This story could have had that with David and Saul or his son Jonathan (Mark Jacobson), who was being passed over yet chose to follow David fascinatingly. Instead, we have to praise violence then pretend we didn’t, making up David’s story as it goes along because Jesus’s movie isn’t ready yet, unfair to the eager children who might believe this to be true.
Let this be a lesson to “the Angel guild”, whomever they may be. You clearly want to make stories about Jesus. Great! Just make sure they’re ready by Christmas, when you want them released. Then you can stick to historical tales of the other Bible heroes that make sense for them. Here’s a tip: the kids will be thrilled to be out of some church basement anyways, so might as well try to make something real and honest for them; it’ll help build trust and keep them in your flock.