(REVIEW) “Arthur the King” is everything good and bad about inspirational dramas — being both wholesome and sweet yet ultimately too shallow and formulaic to truly be a winning movie.

Based on the book “Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home,” the movie version follows the true-life story of the comeback of professional adventure racer Michael Light (played by Mark Wahlberg), who is trying to win his first race after a humiliating previous attempt. Along with his team (Simu Liu, Nathalie Emmanuel and Ali Suliman), he develops an unlikely friendship with a stray dog during the race. 

“Arthur the King” is, on the one hand, exactly what you expect from an inspirational true-life sports movie about a team of runners and their dog. The movie is wholesome and sweet, the characters likable enough, the dog adorable and the characters flawed in ways that they have to overcome their external obstacles.  

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Overall, the cast is solid, all bringing a grounded humanity and authenticity to their roles when they could have just gone through the motions. Liu particularly stands out as Michael’s attention-hog rival who balances a self-aware cockiness and realness to a role that could have been just a stock foil.  

The dialogue sometimes does a good job of landing jokes that deliver some genuine laughs and make the characters seem like real people more than archetypes. The slightly gritty texture of the cinematography makes the movie feel less airbrushed than other inspirational dramas of this type.

That said, the movie mostly remains comfortably in the shallow end of a paint-by-numbers inspirational drama. The film and its characters hit most of their expected character beats obligatorily. Michael’s team and family are given potentially interesting backstories and motivations, but the movie never explores them, reducing them to stock roles. The movie also lionizes Michael Light, even when it doesn’t entirely make sense. The movie also sets up that his big flaw is that he doesn’t listen to other people — including his team — and yet he spends the entire third act defying all his teammates' advice. 

Wahlberg, a practicing Catholic, has long been known for gritty roles like “The Departed” and R-rated comedies such as “Ted.” But this jump to prioritizing family-friendly projects is no surprise. Wahlberg has been making a big and intentional shift as of late as to what kinds of projects he’s picked to be involved in. His last big project was the faith-based “Father Stu,” which was a passion project of his.  

“I’ve always been like, OK, as soon as I get to a certain place, and I have a certain voice and reach and platform, then I’ll start doing more things that will move the needle in terms of my faith, and things that I think could be productive, helpful and in service,” he said. “So when this project came to me, I was like, ‘You know what? I need to go make this.’” 

Likewise, he’s very open at this time in his life wanting to prioritize his family and movies that his family can see. He told the Hollywood Reporter: “You know, I do enjoy doing things that the whole entire family can see. Look, I’m 52 years old now. I’m a dad of four. I’ve got a kid in college. I like playing age-appropriate roles. I think a lot of people don’t embrace that and audiences are like — this doesn’t seem real.” 

Wahlberg’s choice to prioritize his faith and family isn’t a surprise. In America, faith and family go hand-in-hand. Religious people are more likely to get married and more likely to prioritize their family life and their children than their secular counterparts — even more so now as secular groups are abandoning marriage at much higher rates than religious people.

Marriage is increasingly becoming a “religious” marker. The fact that religious people in America tend to prioritize family has led to complaints by some within the Christian community to claim that religious Americans “idolize” the family and make single people feel unwelcome.  

Others, like Brad Wilcox in his book “Get Married,” argue that this focus on family and marriage is a good thing, as it redirects people who otherwise would be putting their job or self-centered ambition or materialism first. He points out that single people are overwhelmingly less happy than their married counterparts and overwhelmingly consumed with a “Midas Mindset” (prioritizing career and selfish concerns) rather than living for Jesus as adherents of Christian singleness have claimed. 

This also explains the long-held association between faith and family-friendliness in the faith-based film industry, where most movies made (from “Fireproof” to “Ordinary Angels”) are made to be something the whole family can enjoy. 

Many people (myself included) often see this as a problem. My “Overthinkers” podcast host Nathan Clarkson wrote about how making every faith-based industry film “family-friendly” made it hard for him to deal honestly with the real struggles he wanted to portray on screen.

“None of the films I made had cursing, they didn’t have sex scenes, and of course, they didn’t have endings where everything wasn’t tied up nicely with a happy ending bow — they didn’t have these things not because I didn’t want to put them in my movies, or thought I could tell a better story without them, but instead because I knew if I did include mature content or unanswered questions in my films, they wouldn’t sell,” he said. 

Others, such as Bill Abbott, the CEO of Great American Media (which just merged with Pure Flix to become “Great American Pure Flix”) see this tendency for those who prioritize family to consider faith as an opportunity. 

In an interview with Religion Unplugged, he explained that part of why he sees that faith-based programming has been low quality is the inability to attract top talent. Therefore, one of his strategies for getting top talent is going out to find actors like Wahlberg who want to prioritize faith. 

“The element that is under the radar I think is how many people really do want to work in this space, and who are willing to put their names out there in association with this product,” he said. “As talent matures, and they become either parents or they want to do good for the world, the mentality changes from people who are much younger and are focused on making a career and a name for themselves.” 

For movies like “Arthur the King,” it’s truly unfortunate how faith-based films “for the whole family” often means shallow and underwhelming. Inspirational movies are great, and seeing movies with the whole family is great. Family and faith, however, shouldn’t mean having to sacrifice quality.

Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.world, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers. His other work and contact info can be found at his website josephholmesstudios.com.