David (2025)

There's something distinctly theatrical about this animation as it depicts the rise of the young David from kindly shepherd to saviour of his nation. The prophet Samuel is a bit disillusioned with King Saul so arrives at the home of this young man's family - and next thing he's had a rather gloopy olive-oil shampoo and been anointed as the next king of Israel! The current wearer of the crown isn't best pleased with this news, but he has more pressing issues with the warlike Philistines preparing to invade. Who does he have to take on the mighty Goliath? This bit all follows a story that surely everyone must know, but after that famous victory the theme goes on to suggest to us a little more of the aftermath between David, his irascible king, and Prince Jonathan - the heir who seems likely to be usurped. What I struggled with initially was just who this was for and why it was released in the middle of August. Christmas or Easter would have seemed a more appropriate time for something like this, especially as some of the dialogue espouses the virtues of the Hebrew God and the challenges of remaining true to his exacting values and principles. The songs aren't bad at all, indeed one or two of the power ballads from Jonas Myrin and Ryhan Shirley like "I Will Not Be Afraid" and "Follow the Light" have something of the Pasek/Paul to them when heard through big screen audio. CGI is now getting to the stage where animating the human face is now all pretty standard fayre, but even there the personifications of David are still quite impressive as are some of the (disappointingly few) action scenes. This does stray somewhat from the detail of it's biblical roots quite a bit, so imagine it more of a children's bible version of a story that handles it's religiosity with kid gloves, instead focussing on a personable adventure about heart and soul, family, loyalty and against some menacing Malachites straight out of "Lord of the Rings".