Review: The Christmas King has a lot of Bible verses, but not much Christmas spirit

Earlier this year, I was very pleasantly surprised by The Greatest Thing Ever: A Garden Cartoon Movie, a spin-off movie of a Christian children's TV show that was more or less a bunch of episodes of said show tied together (very loosely) to tell a story that was peppered with funny situations, catchy songs, and lots of Bible verses. So I was very pleased to learn that there was another movie, and a Christmas one at that: The Christmas King! A Garden Cartoon Holiday Movie! is now streaming on the Angel app.

If you read my review of the previous movie, a lot of it applies here, too. This is, once again, a bunch of little episodes that flow into each other, a little clunkily, but smoothly enough. Lenny the lion and Lucy the lamb are still regularly accepting missions from the Boss (God, who appears as a rainbow), missions which inevitably lead to them learning important life lessons. I think the samesiness of this is part of the reason I didn't enjoy this entry in the series nearly as much as the last go-round. It has that feeling of been-there-done-that which is more acceptable when you're watching a TV show rather than a movie.

(I should note, from my investigation on the Angel app: it looks like the first movie literally is a bunch of episodes of the show stitched together, whereas this one looks like it didn't originate on the show? But when I looked up the songs, they're listed on an album from 2023 on Apple Music. Very mysterious.)

I feel like I should start with my biggest gripe: this is not a Christmas movie. Or it barely is. The film opens with Lenny and Lucy decorating a massive Christmas tree alongside their friend Ralph, the rooster inventor. It starts to snow, and Lenny catches the first snowflake of winter, which we all know means one thing: they need to bring said snowflake to the Christmas King at the summit of Christmas Mountain, so they can ensure everyone will have a Merry Christmas. That's part of all of our family traditions, right?

I was looking forward to watching these characters go on their quest to bring the snowflake to the mountaintop. I was picturing a cutesy Lord of the Rings kind of deal with plenty of lessons and songs along the way. But instead, The Christmas King eschews a cohesive narrative, going the episodic route instead. In each vignette (because that's arguably what they are), Lenny pulls out the snowflake at some point and says something about it, but it's such an afterthought to him and Lucy, which is weird, when the entire fate of Christmas seemingly hangs in the balance.

But fine, this movie is going to be episodic. Whatever. It worked last time. Let's have some Christmas fun!

Not so fast! All of the little adventures our heroes experience are also barely related to Christmas. They explore a maze, have a sleepover, go camping in the woods, and attend a penguin wedding. In all of these scenarios, Christmas is shoehorned in (it's a pre-Christmas sleepover, and a Christmas wedding). Aside from these brief mentions and the Christmas decorations in some of the backgrounds, this movie doesn't have much Christmas spirit at all.

Until it does in its final bit, where things get genuinely Christmas-y, complete with a song about Jesus being the reason for the season (spoiler alert: he's also the Christmas King). By that point, I was already feeling pretty let-down by the lack of genuine Christmas gusto, and it was too little, too late. But at least it got there. (Of course, for nonreligious viewers like me, it's also not the kind of Christmas message you want to land on, but it's obviously expected here, and rightfully so).

I wasn't as drawn in to most of the episodes in this film, and part of that is the repetition of some of the themes. The first bit is about being happy with who you are and not comparing yourselves to others. Later, there's a lesson about not being jealous. Later, in a part that's about not being afraid, there's yet more talk about not comparing yourself to someone else. Like, yes, that's a good message to impart in kids, but it feels weird to keep coming back to that point when the Bible is full of all kinds of lessons and stories, no?

The most stand-out scene is also the film's most disturbing, in which Lenny and Lucy (along with Captain Snappy) get swallowed by a whale. They pray for wisdom, which leads to them using the detritus in the whale's stomach to take control of its body. A loose steering whale gets tied to some bones, a makeshift periscope goes out through the blowhole, a treadmill is wired up to its tale. I never thought I'd see a movie that includes Christian cartoon body horror, but here we are, and I don't hate it!

For its target audience, The Christmas King! A Garden Cartoon Holiday Movie! is going to tick all the necessary boxes. It packs gentle Sunday school lessons into an attractive package, with a lot of cute bits, funny jokes, and solid songs. So I think it's fair to count the film as a success, even if it left me wanting more.