David Animated Film Sparks Outrage Over Propaganda Claims

Calling David a simple misfire would be letting it off lightly. This animated feature, brought out by Angel Studios—the same mob behind Sound of Freedom—lands with a heavy-handed agenda that’s hard to ignore. It’s packaged as a family-friendly yarn, but there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface, and not in a good way.

Sanitised History and Heavy-Handed Messaging

With the world watching real violence unfold in the region, directors Brent Dawes and Phil Cunningham have chosen to gloss over the gritty reality, turning a tale of conquest into a sugar-coated Sunday School lesson. There’s no subtlety here; the story is hammered home with all the finesse of a sledgehammer. Instead of a nuanced narrative, what you get is a film that feels more like a justification for a particular worldview than a genuine attempt at storytelling.

The script is grating, unfunny, and preaches at every turn. Characters don’t come across as people from a complex era—they’re just mouthpieces for modern talking points.

“We are His people”

and

“We must fight for our God”

are delivered with the energy of a political rally, not a cinematic tale. At nearly two hours, it’s a slog, dragging viewers through a warped retelling of the Book of Samuel that feels more like a lecture than entertainment.

Visuals and Character Design Under Fire

On the visual front, things don’t get any better. The animation is rough, but what’s more concerning is the way characters are depicted. The Philistines are shown as a faceless, darker-skinned mass, playing into old, harmful stereotypes. They’re stripped of any humanity, painted as mindless brutes, which makes the violence against them feel calculated and cold.

Oddly, Goliath is the only one with distinctly white features, cast as a “God-hating demon,” which muddies the waters even further. The Israelites, meanwhile, are designed to look just “brown enough” to tick a box, but not so much as to put off white audiences. It’s a cynical approach that dehumanises one group while sanitising another.

Technical Shortcomings and Stunt Casting

From a technical angle, David is a letdown. The animation, courtesy of Sunrise Animation Studios, looks more like a cheap mobile game ad than something you’d pay to see at the cinema. Movements are stiff, backgrounds are bland, and there’s no real sense of place or emotion. The much-touted research trips to places like the Valley of Elah don’t show up on screen—it all looks generic and lifeless.

The soundtrack doesn’t help matters. It’s a collection of bland “worship vibes” that never really lift the story. The cast is stacked with Christian music stars like Phil Wickham and Lauren Daigle, but neither brings much to the table in terms of acting. Miri Mesika’s turn as Nitzevet is wooden, and even experienced voice actors can’t save the script from itself.

Dangerous Framing and Political Undertones

The real issue comes with how the conflict is framed. By telling the story solely through the lens of divine right, the filmmakers let their heroes off the hook for any moral complexity. Violence is shown as not just necessary, but holy. This isn’t just a retelling of a Bible story—it’s a modern political statement dressed up as animation, ignoring the real-world context to push a narrative that strips the “enemy” of any humanity.

David ends up as a manipulative piece of work that manages to offend just about everyone. It takes a story with spiritual roots and twists it into something ugly, pushing a message of conquest and exclusion to a young audience, all while glossing over the blood-soaked history of the land it depicts.