Film reviews: Sinners and The King of Kings

Sinners

Directed by Ryan Coogler (R)

A movie in which Michael B. Jordan plays twins and takes on a pack of vampires “would have been more than enough,” said William Bibbiani in The Wrap. But Ryan Coogler’s “bloody, brilliant” first non-franchise film since 2013’s Fruitvale Station “evolves into a tale of cultural survival,” and while the director of Creed and Black Panther has probably tried to do too much with Sinners, “its allure cannot be denied.” Jordan portrays the Smokestack brothers, who have returned to their Mississippi hometown in 1932 to open a transcendent juke joint with ill-gotten riches. The star proves “dynamic and alive in a way that allows this movie to be at least two things at any one time—not just silly and serious, but also ruthless and loving,” said David Ehrlich in IndieWire.

When the grand opening is threatened by the arrival of three white vampires, viewers will expect blood and get it. Really, though, “the only thing scary about Sinners is the abstract notion of losing someone, or yourself, to the devil’s embrace.” And instead of making a movie about white interlopers feeding like vampires on Black culture, said Richard Lawson in Vanity Fair, “Coogler, as ever, digs deeper.” The lead vampire, played by Jack O’Connell, is an Irish immigrant who has also known discrimination, and he temptingly suggests that joining his tribe of bloodsuckers can be a way for the Black revelers to seek revenge against their oppressors. “Messy but always compelling,” Sinners fumbles certain details. Even so, it “announces a new and perhaps further elevated era of Coogler’s cinematic reach.”

The King of Kings

Directed by Seong-ho Jang (PG)

Judged as cinema, the new animated life of Jesus is “ripe for a Sunday youth group but not much else,” said Carlos Aguilar in Variety. “Serviceable if uninspired,” The King of Kings has nevertheless scored the highest-grossing opening weekend ever for an animated biblical movie, bouncing 1998’s The Prince of Egypt if no adjustment is made for inflation. Jesus’ story is told here by Charles Dickens, which is “not quite as Mad Libs–adjacent as it sounds,” said Alissa Wilkinson in The New York Times. The great novelist wrote a book about Jesus exclusively for his children in which he emphasized Jesus’ kindness. By contrast, this movie from Angel Studios, the faith-based media company responsible for the 2023 hit Sound of Freedom, focuses hazily on what it calls the power of faith, and it seems to have been made purely to take money from the type of people who feel obligated to buy tickets to any retelling of Jesus’ life.

“As a Christian, and as a movie critic, I would like to say this loudly, with my whole chest: This movie doesn’t need to exist.” But if you’re a Christian moviegoer and you have children, said Bob Strauss in the San Francisco Chronicle, “there are worse ways to celebrate Easter.” The all-star vocal cast includes a “credible” Oscar Isaac as Jesus and Kenneth Branagh as Dickens, and while there’s little subtlety to the characters’ expressions, the animators “can serve up stirring tableaux.” Besides reviewing Jesus’ story from birth through death and resurrection, the film also “makes a good case for the power of imagination.”