This animated adaptation of Bunyan’s 17th-century religious allegory features some scary demons but the rest is pretty tame
Pity the poor year-nine students who henceforth will be plonked in front of this plodding, sanctimonious animation of John Bunyan’s 1678 religious allegory as “a treat” in RE class. The film’s animation is reminiscent of an aircraft safety video, with characters moving stiffly while delivering the dialogue in awkward, am-dram style.
It begins promisingly in the City of Destruction, a vividly animated inferno where citizens toil at backbreaking work. After one of them goes missing, leaving behind a house full of visionary sketches and a book about the Celestial City, Christian Pilgrim (voiced by Ben Price) follows him into the unknown, abandoning his family. First stop on his journey is the Swamp of Despair. At Vanity Fair he must resist the temptations of the flesh – painted ladies, cakes galore – while at points along the road he is visited by the kindly Evangelist, who looks like Jesus with a
Kate Middleton blow dry.