Not this perspective. It would make sense that faith based studios would want to make as many movies about Jesus and his teachings as possible. At first I was on board, especially using Jesus as a lesson to teach a random character not in biblical times. But Light of the World literally just remixes that film…but with a disciple in Jesus’s time. Um, sure, I guess? Bible study parents need to mix it up every few months to keep the kiddos engaged.
This Jesus (Ian Hanlin) story is told through the eyes of John (Benjamin Jacobson). Jesus’s youngest disciple started out at a fisherman, son of Zebedee (David Pettitt) and Salome (Erin Matthews). Fascinated by mom’s stories of the Messiah, John gets real excited when he hears from Andrew (Vincent Tong) and older bro James (Dylan Leonard) that a strange guy eating bugs near the Jordan River might be “him.” But the Baptizer (Jesse Inocalla) tells the boy he’s the messenger, for someone John’s gonna realize quickly is actually the person of his bedtime fables…but in real life!
It’s hilarious how similar Light of the World is to The King of Kings, which came out just a few months ago. The only real difference is animation style (this one looks more hand drawn and the other is pure CGI). This is for the children, so we get the bullet points of Jesus’s teachings, but through the eyes of John. Instead of 1950s Cecil B. DeMille aging him up, we go backwards, making him seem like he’s somewhere between 11 and 15 (he was probably 17-20 in real life). That makes Johnny boy our audience surrogate, asking Jesus the perfect question to repeat a verbatim Bible verse back to him, which is the real goal here. There’s nothing interesting or new to add for the parents, just regurgitated leftovers of stuff you already know.
Except for the unintentional comedy. Mediocre/bad faith based films don’t quite see how dumb some of their choices are until it’s too late. Since there are no real characters just animated Bible quotes, the dialogue is so weird that you can take Tommy Wiseau like pleasure in the woefully executed scenes the movie thinks will make you a believer. The animators convey Jesus’s miracles like he’s some sort of superhero, basically making his hands brighten up as he heals a blind man, or a woman hearing voices in her head. I half expected the resurrection to end with Jesus literally summoning a cloud and flying up to heaven (at least there’s some restraint there from the filmmakers), that’s how silly these choices are, undercutting the more important messages Jesus believed in. But the funniest joke is right at the end, something you’ll recognize if you’ve ever seen any faith based film and their end credits. That scene completely undercuts the movie’s entire message, and made me burst out laughing as I left the theater. So I guess maybe Light of the World is for the parents, but I should clarify, the more cynical parents, who will make fun games in their head because of the strange choices the movie makes about Jesus’s story.
So Angel Studios, maybe try a new perspective next time you animate? How about a modern day child enamored with phones and unclear how Jesus relates to them. Even better, how about a female character, once? Then at least Mary could get superpowers too maybe? Or is that the plot of the King of Kings prequel?