‘The Pilgrim’s Progress’ Review- An Allegory Brought To Life

In 1678, John Bunyan penned from his prison cell the allegory ‘The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come.’ Now Relevant Media and Producer Steve Clearly brings us The Pilgrim’s Progress, a CGI animated feature film.

Christian Pilgrim (Ben Price) hears of one his neighbors fleeing the city he lives in with his wife and family. In his belongings, he stumbles upon a book that tells of the Celestial City, a place of joy and happiness. Upon reading this, a great burden of sorrow grows on his back. Despite pleas from his family and friends, Pilgrim sets out on the journey and along the way meets Evangelist (John Rhys-Davies), who sets him on the Narrow Road, who warns him that his quest is wrought with troubles, but also reward.

This is an excellent adaption of the classic tale. It is certainly a movie that you can take the entire family too. Those are so rare these days. While the film does take certain liberties with the story, it was not to add unnecessary time, instead, it was for clarification since a lot of the story is told through Pilgrim’s inner monologues. This worked to expand on the story and to flesh out the themes of the masterpiece.

The animation is done with CGI that resembles Pixar’s Ratatouille. It did have certain limitations, but I found that it was really well done. Certainly, the character were all designed to the book’s specification, especially Beelzebub and Apollyon. Their designs were well done and brought out the fear that the character was supposed to invoke.

One final note, I want to praise Ben Price’s portrayal of Christian Pilgrim. He really fleshed out the character. When he was worried, you felt concerned. When he was triumphant, you felt his cheer. When he was sad, you felt the sorrow. I want to give a shoutout to Davies, whose role as Evangelist brought that unique gravitas.

Bottom line, The Pilgrim’s Progress is a rare gem. It is a family feature that is neither cheesy nor falls into fleckless platitudes. Instead, it works to bring a classic tale of one man’s quest to find Heaven and peace. I only hope the filmmakers develop the second part of the story about Pilgrim’s wife Christiana.

FAVORITE QUOTE: Keep that light in your eye and stick towards it.

PARENTAL CONCERN: Some minor violence; some frightening images

Check out the trailer below:

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. While you are at it, check out my movie review of The Highwaymen and my article about Easter and why we celebrate Ressurection Sunday. Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe for more posts like this one.

Did you know my new fantasy novel “The Seven Royals: All Good Things” is now available on Barnes and Noble and Amazon? You can get your e-book copy at BookLocker.

You can find me on everywhere on social media! Facebook: Author Jacob Airey | Instagram: realjacobairey| Twitter: @realJacobAirey | YouTube: StudioJake

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.