David: A Biblical Worldview Movie Review for Families

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Hello, friends. On today's special edition of the Foundation Worldview Podcast, we are going to be talking about the David movie. We're going to be talking through what are some positive elements, what are some negative elements? And then if you choose to engage with the movie, what are three biblically grounded questions you can talk through with your children afterwards to get them thinking both critically and biblically? So that's the topic we're going to dive down deep into today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast where typically we're seeking to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the Christian worldview. I'm your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz, and I'm thrilled that you've joined me for this episode today.

Now, as I say at the beginning of basically every movie review podcast, I am never going to encourage you to take your child to see a certain movie simply because it's a matter of conscience. So if your conscience is leading you not to take your child to see this movie, don't take your child to see it. However, if you are curious and you're not sure yet or you think you already are going to take your child to see it, this review I'm hoping is going to be helpful and equipping you to get your kids to think critically and biblically.

Positive Elements of the Movie

The first thing I want to talk about is just positive elements of the movie. The first thing that really struck me as I went to see it today is I was just in all honesty flabbergasted by the quality of the animation. This past year, just in movie reviews for the Foundation Worldview podcast, I've seen the animated films King of Kings, Light of the World, Elio and Zootopia Two in theaters. And I thought that the animation for David just quite frankly blew all of that out of the water, that it was just excellent.

I was also really impressed by the visual storytelling, just how they chose to tell the story through film. There were just certain creative elements that I thought were really nice touches. For example, when Goliath is coming out of his tent, you hear the pounding just to get an idea of how tall and how heavy he is. But not only do you see him walking out of the tent, but for a moment or two, the camera angle is focused on the ground and you see just the flowers and the rocks on the ground just vibrating. And I thought there were just a bunch of places like that where they chose really creative ways to tell the story visually.

The music was also excellent along with the vocal talents. I don't remember who was the young David voice, but Phil Wickham voices David as an adult. And it was just excellent. There were even some kids in the theater who had obviously been exposed to the music ahead of time because they were singing along with some of the songs.

I thought they also did a really good job of doing the violent scenes tastefully. For example, when Goliath is killed, you do see the rock strike his forehead. However, you don't see any blood gush out. I just remember as a child, we had a Hannah Barbera version of David and Goliath. And I remember I would always go and hide behind the couch whenever David was slinging the stone because they just had so much blood gushing out of his forehead where there was none of that in this movie. Also, you do see at the end that Jonathan is killed and you just see him surrounded by the Philistines and then he kind of falls to the ground and you don't see them finish him off. So I just thought that the violent scenes were done tastefully.

Now, the movie was still intense in places. So depending on how your child is with handling more intense or just mildly violent scenes, you may want to wait. If you're going to engage with this movie, wait until you can stream it at home so that you have control over the volume and over being able to fast forward through different scenes.

Another positive of the movie is I thought that for a good portion of the scenes that were included, that they followed pretty closely to the biblical narrative. Now, you probably noticed that I just said a good portion because that means not all of the scenes followed closely after the biblical narrative. And we'll talk through that a little bit in the negative elements. But those were just the main positive elements that I saw in the movie.

Oh, sorry, there was one more positive that I forgot to mention. This movie is about two hours long. It's just under two hours, which is pretty long for a kid's film. However, I just try when I'm in the theater to note, how are the kids around me handling this? And I thought that the movie did a really good job of interspersing enough action and then songs to keep kids engaged that every time kids were starting to get a little bit antsy and starting to either get up or talk, another song would be interspersed or there'd be another really exciting action scene because two hours is a long time for a child to sit still and watch a movie. So I thought they did a really good job in that timeframe of really keeping the audience engaged.

Negative Elements to Consider

Now, the negative elements. I thought probably the biggest negative element was the end of the movie specifically veered pretty far off course from the narrative that the movie—it's not the final ending scene, but the scene right before it—is David is going to get his family back from the Amalekites. Because if you remember in 1 Samuel chapter 30, while David and his men are off fighting, the Amalekites come and take the women and children and all of their possessions with them. And so they do have David go after his family. In this movie, they did not portray him as being married, so there were no wives, but his parents and his siblings.

But it's really strange. In the movie, they have David go by himself and he goes unarmed. And so he goes and he gets captured by the Amalekites and then he sings a song to give the people courage. And then eventually the people are freed. And I was just like, whoa, this is completely different than what the Bible says. David and his men, they go and they follow the Amalekites. Half of the men stay at the brook of Besor, the other half go. And they actually, they just annihilate the group of Amalekites that stole the families. And so they kill the Amalekites and then get the women and children and the plunder back. And so this was just really far off course. And I get it. They only had just two hours to tell this film. They had to choose what they were doing and what they were not doing. But I was just like, man, this is completely different than the biblical narrative.

Then the final scene is the scene basically where David is ascending to the throne. And so again, I get it, you only have two hours, so you can't show the entire life of David, but it just made things seem completely positive where I was like, every time I get to probably a few chapters into Second Samuel, I just kind of just have this huge sigh. And I'm just like, David, you were doing so well. But then things just go downhill. There's David and Bathsheba and then Amnon and Tamar and Absalom and Amnon and then Absalom trying to steal the throne and David fleeing. And David's life just takes a major downhill turn after he ascends to the throne. And so I just thought like, oh, it kind of stinks that they ended it just like David has risen to the throne perfect where that's not how the Bible ends it. But again, I get it. You only had two hours to tell this movie.

And then as I was driving home and I was thinking like, "Man, they just made David seem like such a hero." And I was thinking that as you read through First and Second Kings and First and Second Chronicles, the theme that is repeated about David is the other kings of Israel and Judah are consistently compared to David and they're compared as if they're lacking, that they did not follow in the footsteps of David who was a king after God's own heart, who was a man after God's own heart. And I thought, even though the Bible does present David's grievous sin and the consequences of that, the consistent theme is how God redeemed him and how David was a man after God's own heart. So I thought, okay, maybe this isn't quite as negative of an element as I was thinking that it was. So those were the two main negative elements. Just I thought how far the ending veered off course from the biblical narrative in First Samuel 30 and then the fact that they just end with David ascending to the throne where that's far from the end of David's life.

A Note About Angel Studios

Now, I want to briefly touch on an element that I know will be mentioned in the comments on YouTube. So this movie is produced by Angel Studios and Angel Studios is owned by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Now I am pretty, well, for a non-Mormon, I think I am pretty well versed in Mormon doctrine and I did not see any Mormon doctrine snuck in to this film.

And so I know that some people will say that they have a problem with their conscience with choosing to engage in Angel Studios. And like I said at the beginning, if your conscience is leading you to stay away from Angel Studios produced films, I would encourage you to follow that because in Romans 14, it talks about matters of conscience and Paul writes, whatever is not of faith is sin. So if your conscience is leading you away from engaging with any Angel Studio's content, that's what I would encourage you to do because that's what's being biblically faithful.

Now, I personally am not convicted to stay away from Angel Studio content. And the reason for this is anytime I go to see a movie, and granted, I try to only see movies that are clean and uplifting, but anytime I go to see a movie, that movie is being produced by a company that opposes the Christian worldview. I mean, there's the rare exceptions like I Can Only Imagine or I Heard the Bells or The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Those movies are exceptions, but most of the time if I go to see a movie, it is being produced by a company that opposes the Christian worldview where my dollar is not going to support that studio's values, it's going to pay for the product that they have produced, that I'm paying them for a service. Similarly, when my HVAC technician comes to my house, I don't ask him, "Are you a Christian? Do you go to church? What kind of things are you spending your money on?" I'm saying, "Okay, I need this service. I need my HVAC service, so I'm paying you to do this." And so I view it similarly when I go to see a movie. But again, this is a matter of conscience. So if your conscience is telling you to stay away from this, stay away from it.

Now I have one more little addendum to add, and I'm sorry to veer off course for another moment, but those of you who are not familiar with YouTube, you probably don't know how intense and often cruel the comments can be on YouTube. So I just want to head this off before comments get written. I'm sure some people are going to be asking, Elizabeth, why is it that you are fine seeing a movie like David that is produced by Angel Studios, yet you warn people against The Good and the Beautiful Curriculum, which is produced also by members of the LDS Church. Like I said before, as far as I saw, the movie David does not sneak in any LDS doctrine where The Good and the Beautiful does. And I have a whole video series outlining evidence of where it sneaks in LDS doctrine. And so that's my answer to that question.

Three Biblically Grounded Discussion Questions

Now, the part of this podcast, which I'm sure most of you are waiting for is what are these biblically grounded questions that we can walk our children through if we do choose to engage in the movie?

Question 1: Where Do We See God's Faithfulness in David's Life?

The first question that I think could be really valuable is asking our kids, where do we see God's faithfulness in David's life? Because this is a major theme throughout the movie, and it's also a major theme throughout scripture where we see God's faithfulness in David's life. And so we can talk through the scenes in the movie where you saw God's faithfulness, when God rescued David from the lion, when God gave David victory over Goliath, when God gave David victory in battle every time Saul sent him out, when God rescued David from the hand of Saul when Saul was hunting him, when God ultimately gave David the throne, so many places throughout the film and throughout the biblical narrative, you see God's faithfulness in David's life. And we really want to point our kids back to God's faithfulness. So I think that's a great first question to talk through.

Question 2: Why Did David's Mom Continue to Point Him Back to Her Tapestry Weaving?

Second question that I think would be really helpful is why did David's mom continue to point him back to her tapestry weaving? Now, those of you who haven't seen the film yet are probably thinking, "What in the world?" Because this part is not a part that is included in the David narrative in the Bible. However, it's a part that was added, but I still think is biblically faithful that throughout the film, every time David doesn't understand why God is allowing something—like when he doesn't understand why God has anointed him king, when he doesn't understand why he's summoned to play music for Saul, when he doesn't understand what's going on with him being sent out to battle, when he doesn't understand why Saul is chasing him—his mom continually points David back to her weaving and she shows him this tapestry that she's weaving.

And she says, when we look at the back of this tapestry, it just looks like this jumbled mess. And she explains that we, in our limited human perspective, we can't tell the grand story that God is weaving in our lives and throughout human history. We can only see the back of that tapestry. And it just looks like a jumbled mess, but she continually points David back to the fact that he can trust that God is good. And towards the end of the movie, we actually do see the front of the tapestry and we see the amazing picture that David's mom was weaving throughout the whole film. And we can talk with our kids about how David's mom was pointing him back to show him that even when we can't understand, we can trust in God's goodness.

And so I would encourage you to take your kids actually to Romans chapter eight, verses 28 and 29, read those verses, which say, "And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." Now, you can read through this verse and say, "Okay, what does God promise in this passage?" He promises that he's working all things together for good for those who love him, and that he's doing that by using those things to conform us more into the image of his son.

So you can make it personal. You can ask your child what are some things in their life that they don't understand why God is allowing, or share some things in your life that you're not sure why God is allowing. And then talk about how you can trust God through those things and even pray, spend time thanking God that you can trust and that he is trustworthy. I know that this is something that I really personally appreciated about the film, just this reminder that God is trustworthy, that this past week in all honesty has not been the most fun week. There are just some things going on, which have been going on for a long time, for months, some of them years, that I'm just thinking like, "God, I don't understand. I don't like what you're doing here. I don't understand why you're allowing this to happen." And it was just so helpful in the midst of kind of a hard week of just being reminded that even when I can't tell or understand why God is allowing the things he's allowing, that he is using them for my good to conform me more into the image of his son.

Now, before we get to the third question, if you just found this review on YouTube or on your favorite podcasting platform and you found it because you're interested in the David movie, highly recommend that you like and subscribe so that you will continue to get episodes of the Foundation Worldview Podcast because what I'm doing right here is what we seek to do in every episode. Not that we do movie reviews in every episode, but seek to provide you with critical thinking questions to ask your kids to get them to think critically and biblically through every area of life.

Question 3: Which Parts of This Movie Align with the Biblical Narrative and Which Parts Are Different?

Now, the third question I think we can go through with our kids is to ask them which parts of this movie align with the narrative in the Bible and which parts are different. And I think this is actually the most powerful question because anytime our kids are presented with material that is coming from the Bible and it's just somebody else's interpretation, we always want them to go back to scripture and to look at, okay, what parts of what I just engaged with are faithful to the biblical narrative? What parts are not faithful? Is it all faithful? Is it all not faithful? Is it a mixed bag? Because we always want our kids to ground everything in scripture.

So there's two options for answering this question. You can do a long version or a short version. So the long version is actually a conversation you're probably going to have over multiple days or even a whole week. And you can read through First Samuel chapter 16 through Second Samuel chapter two with your children. And First Samuel 16 starts off with where David is anointed. And then Second Samuel two is the chapter where David actually ascends the throne. And so at the end of each chapter, after you read through each chapter, discuss the similarities and differences between the movie. What parts of this chapter were included in the movie? Were all of the parts included? What parts of the movie were actually added that we don't find in this section of scripture?

Now, if you're thinking, Elizabeth, I don't have a whole week to talk through this, okay, there's a shortened version for you. The shortened version is to simply read through First Samuel chapter 30. That is the story of when the Amalekites captured David's family and the families of all the other men in his army, and then discuss how the movie veered pretty far from the truth. In the biblical narrative, David and his men fight to reclaim their wives and children and the Amalekites are destroyed. And it was actually the military strength that the Lord provided, not some song that David sang that then encouraged all the people to start singing. So talk through that. And again, the goal is to get our kids to always look back to scripture. Okay, what does the Bible reveal and does this line up with what is revealed in scripture?

Bonus Question for Foundation Worldview Families

Now, I know I said that I had three questions to discuss. However, I do have a bonus question that I think you can discuss with your kids. Now, this bonus question is actually only for people who have taken their kids through our Studying the Bible Curriculum here at Foundation Worldview. If you have a child who is eight and up, highly recommend you go through our Studying the Bible Curriculum because by the end of it, by the end of the 30 lessons, your child will be equipped to soundly read, interpret, and apply scripture on their own. And what more can we want than our child being equipped to seek God through his word all the days of their lives?

So what I think you can do is if you have taken your child through our Studying the Bible curriculum, review the truth that is covered in unit two, lesson nine. And that truth that is covered is that when we're reading through scripture, we need to focus on truths revealed about God, truths revealed about humans and truths revealed about God's rescue plan.

And you can talk through how one of the main themes in the movie was David's courage in the Lord and how he inspired others to be brave. Now we do see in the biblical narrative, David's courage in the Lord. However, that's not the main theme in the narratives of David's life. So I recommend talking through, okay, what truths are revealed about God in David's life? And talk about how throughout the narrative of David, we see God's covenant faithfulness to his people that God promised the nation of Israel that when they loved and trusted and obeyed him, that he would protect them. And as David walked forward in faith, loving and trusting and obeying God, God was faithful to his covenant promise.

Talk about the truths revealed about humans in David's life, how David at times chose to be faithful, that humans can choose by the power of the Holy Spirit to be faithful to God's commands, but then talk about how we also see in David's life him choosing to break God's commands. And then as David repents, God forgives him. God redeems him. So talk about how we see the truth that humans by the power of the Holy Spirit can choose to be faithful. Humans often rebel, but we have redemption through Jesus.

And then truths about God's rescue plan, talk about how God is working his grand rescue plan throughout the narrative of David, that God is ultimately through this narrative ushering in the Davidic line, which Jesus is part of, that God is getting David on the throne to be the first person in the kingly lineage of the Messiah. He's not the first person in the lineage of the Messiah. That would be Adam, but he's the first person on the throne of Israel who is in that kingly lineage of the Messiah. And so I think when we can help our kids see the big picture of what's going on in scripture, that is so powerful.

Equip Your Family to Think Biblically

Well, that's a wrap for this episode, but if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview podcast, you could submit that question by going to foundationworldview.com/podcast.

If this review has been helpful to you, I encourage you to join the Foundation Worldview community by subscribing to our email list. You'll receive practical resources, biblical worldview insights, and ongoing guidance to help you equip the children in your care to think critically and biblically about everything they encounter—from movies like this one to the cultural messages they face every day. Don't miss out on the tools that can transform how your family engages with media and the world around them.

As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is the same as always that no matter the situations in which you and the kids God has placed in your care find yourselves, that you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of his Son. I'll see you next time.