Kanye West: Jesus Is King

Kanye uses Kubrick-esque cinematography to explore raw musical ideas on the theme of worship. It's challenging for someone who just wants Kanye. It's a near-perfect glimpse inside his creative vision - beyond what a casual Kanye fan will appreciate. Will likely receive terrible reviews - which I believe is exactly in line with Kanye's vision for this project. As always, he challenges pop culture norms. People will "get it" in a few years when the culture catches up to him.

Third is just a short film featuring gospel music and some visual effects of random things.

The music is nice enough of you like gospel and the effects inoffensive, if a bit baflling at times.

Not this isn't a documentary it anything like it if you are expecting that.

Imagine an Imax screen that's 4 stories high. Now imagine seeing a blurry photo of some thistles while choir music plays. It's jarring and at times nauseating. A lot of this video is shot with bad camera angles and very little movement of the camera. In fact it looks like the Heaven's Gate cult got back together to sing Gospel.

The good news is that the performance by the Sunday Service Choir is excellent. This music video disappointingly fails to showcase them as the vocal force they should be.

I don't know why they shot in this art installation. It makes the whole thing claustrophobic with its extreme close-ups. An audience doesn't need to see Kanye West's meter long chest hairs. An audience doesn't need to be made to feel cramped when IMAX is made to exude space.

Speaking of which, Kanye's barely on screen for 5 minutes. A lot of it, covered in shadow.

I recommend renting this one and enjoying it on your own TV with a promotion credit or something. It's really half an hour. The people in the audience that bought the large popcorn tubs and sodas didn't even have a chance to get started with their munching before the credits came up.

I can see the concept, and I understand the potential that it had. However, the film was very boring, and seems to have to purpose. Its almost like you watch it, and nothing changed at all. You aren't thinking, entertained or anything. Only 1-3 of the songs were decent, the rest were rather annoying and repetitive. The imagery was cool, but quickly gets overplayed and very repetitive. This movie hypes you up, waiting for a climax, only for there to never be a climax. As a huge kanye film, this film was not worth watching. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Jesus is King's success for you will solely depend on your honest views of Kanye West himself as the film leans on both sides of praise as well as criticism.

If you like Kanye for his visual presentation, Jesus is King will satisfy that need. There are some stunning wide shots of the Sunday Service group within the art installation Rodden Crater. The choir as well sound amazing together and the IMAX format makes you feel the echoes of the acoustics of where they recorded.

If you don't like Kanye and find his work pretentious with no reason behind it, Jesus is King won't change your mind either. The film lacks any real backstory of Kanye's train of thought in the film, which is severely needed in this era of his. There are many shots that feel like it's leading to a larger narrative, but ultimately don't go anywhere.

Whichever way you may swing with Kanye, it's still worth a watch in IMAX. Maybe you will feel the praise or maybe you won't. It's all open to you as the viewer.