David

David arrives dressed in the comfortable robe of a story everyone thinks they know, then discreetly pulls the fabric in another direction: yes, the slingshot is there, yes, the giant falls, but the film (co-directed and co-written by Brent Dawes and Phil Cunningham) refuses to treat this moment as a finish line. This structural choice is the first real statement of intent, as it reframes the legend from a simple comic fall to a political fable about coming of age: what happens to a boy whose private calling becomes a public myth, and how can a victory that can be summed up in one sentence complicate the rest of your life? We find ourselves smiling at the way the film confidently plays with audience expectations and then goes on to film the more complicated consequences of jealousy, leadership, and responsibility. It is also, without a doubt, an Angel Studios production in the sense that it draws on the biblical structure to deliver a perfectly crafted film; If you already know the highlights of the Book of Samuel, you will sense that the film is setting up twists and turns that you can anticipate, but if you come just to see a child defeat a big bad guy, you may be surprised and sometimes challenged by everything that remains to be seen after the famous microphone blow.

What captivates throughout the film is not the personality of the script, as the writing often favors sincere statements over authentic humor, but the simple craftsmanship of the images. The Sunrise animation team constructs an ancient world that feels tactile rather than plastic: dust floats in the sun's rays, fire and water capture light with a satisfying sparkle, and textiles are rendered with such love that you can almost feel the weave. Here we find a recurring pleasure in the small things of the material world, the texture of fabrics, the movement of hair, the sand caught in curls, which gives the film a strange and charming contradiction: it advocates humility while reveling in superficial details, and this tension ultimately becomes part of its charm. It's no exaggeration to say that the film repeatedly distracted us in the best possible way, just as a beautifully lit shot in a much more important studio feature film can make you sit up and say, “Okay, someone put a lot of effort into this.” The staging also shows real cinematic thought: the graceful notes at the beginning (a flying insect, a gradual revelation of the location) and the use of scale when threats appear are handled with more confidence than one might expect from a confessional animation label, and some compositions briefly flirt with the epic language of live-action war cinema without ever veering into family nightmare territory.

As a character, young David is drawn according to the familiar codes of animated heroes: large, expressive eyes, sincerity set to music, but Brandon Engman's performance gives him an earthy gentleness that makes shepherd life more than just a narrative interlude. We particularly appreciated the way the lion episode at the beginning of the film serves as a thesis to introduce the David of this version: courageous, certainly, but also with a gentleness that makes the story accessible to a school audience. Brian Stivale brings a quiet authority to the role of the prophet Samuel, and his line about reluctance being a surprisingly good criterion for leadership hits home because it is delivered without a wink, as if the film is aware that the simplest idea in the play may still be the truest. But where the film really stands out is in its portrayal of Saul: Adam Michael Gold embodies him with a truly captivating volatility, and the film's best dramatic engine is watching a king collapse not because a villain is twirling his mustache, but because insecurity turns into paranoia. This friction between a designated successor who often seems to be presented as a concept of “goodness” rather than a complex human being, and a reigning monarch whose fear is vivid and specific, ultimately sets the pace for the second half of the film, even as it begins to run out of steam.

The centerpiece Goliath is, as promised, the aesthetic high point: Kamran Nikhad's giant is designed for maximum intimidation, and the confrontation has a bold clarity worthy of a fairy tale that children will instantly understand. The field of red poppies is a clever poetic visual element, where beauty rubs shoulders with menace, and the impact of the fall is staged as a festive shockwave, with petals bursting forth as if nature itself were reacting to the story being written. The only complication is tonal: Asim Chaudhry's King Achish is played with an exaggerated theatricality that can either be seen as welcome comic relief in a children's epic or as a caricature that takes you out of the moment, depending on your tolerance for exaggeration in a story that also aims to be spiritually serious. For me, it's a mixed bag: the film often uses humor as a pressure valve, but this instinct sometimes undermines the mythic weight it seeks to achieve, particularly around what should be unambiguous admiration.

As a musical, David is both its most accessible strategy for audiences and its most inconsistent element. Jonas Myrin offers a series of catchy pop tunes that fit perfectly into the narrative (David is a musician, so the singing doesn't seem arbitrary), and Joseph Trapanese's orchestral music really helps give the film a dimension greater than its religious niche. Nevertheless, the songs can blend into the pleasant but precisely crafted manner except when the images highlight them. The Tapestry sequence stands out precisely for this reason: it's where the film's thematic metaphor (threads, history, purpose, faith) transforms into a sensory experience, and Miri Mesika, as Nitzevet, brings a warmth that gives the film its rare flashes of specific emotion. It is also here that the film alludes to a deeper idea that it does not always have the means to support: belief is not only about courage in battle, but also about learning to live with uncertainty without becoming Saul.

One can only acknowledge that David is an impressive technical achievement and a solid family film that sometimes borders on greatness, even if it doesn't always find the emotion it seeks. Its biggest limitation is that its hero can seem more like an emblem than a complex personality, so that when the plot moves beyond Goliath to focus on politics and pursuit, the film relies heavily on spectacle and Saul's downward spiral to maintain its dramatic momentum. And yet, it's hard to ignore how convincing it is in its appearance and tone, or how effectively it presents a fundamental story to a wide audience without falling into constant preaching.

David
Written and directed by Brent Dawes, Phil Cunningham
Based on Book of Samuel
Produced by Steve Pegram, Tim Keller, Rita Mbanga
Starring Phil Wickham, Brandon Engman, Asim Chaudhry, Miri Mesika, Mick Wingert, Will de Renzy-Martin, Lauren Daigle, Mark Jacobson
Edited by Tom Scott
Music by Joseph Trapanese
Production companies: 2521 Entertainment, Slingshot Productions, Sunrise Animation Studios
Distributed by Angel (United States), Saje Distribution (France)
Release date: December 19, 2025 (United States), March 18, 2025 (France)
Running time: 115 minutes

Seen on February 10, 2026 on VOD

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