The Secret of Kells (2009)

I loved it-in the beginning, at least. It started out okay. Intro, boy living in walled town/village/whatever its called, good. Plot builds, gets more exciting and engaging, friendship with fairy, drawing, attacked by vikings, fleeing into the woods, and... cut. I feel like this is where it all went wrong. I was expecting at least another half-hour of the movie, but I paused it and saw that ten minutes were left instead. The main character is rescued by Ashley, (who doesn't speak to him again for the remainder of the movie) and I could see the friendship that half of the movie had been cultivating go down the metaphorical toilet bowl. He doesn't ask her to hide them from the vikings, and instead just runs, and runs, and runs... (for like, 10+ years)and eventually shows back up at Kells, sees his uncle, etc. Another thing I'm annoyed about is that how the Abbot and the man working on the book seemed to know each other, but their possible past relationship was never explained or made clear. Overall, I felt like this movie started out well, began to become excellent, and then the people making it ran out of money and had to do a rush job to finish it, which pretty much trashed everything up to that point.

The Secret of Kells is an Irish-French-Belgian animated fantasy film, directed by Tom Moore. Just like it's sequel movie Song of the Sea, it's unlike anything we've seen on screen. The visuals are enchanting and fanciful. Brendan is an idealistic young boy who lives in the Abbey of Kells, which is an outpost surrounded by heavily fortified walls. Due to the threats of the Viking raids, his uncle, and the monks are sequestered on the abbey so Brendan has never stepped out of the walls. One day Brother Aidan comes to Kells with an unfinished sacred book of knowledge, which he refers to it as "a beacon in these dark days" of brutal attacks. Brendan is fascinated with the book and tries to help Brother Aidan complete the book, as his hands are too old and unsteady to finish the book. But to create the book, Brendan has to undertake a dangerous quest to obtain ink berries in the forest. Luckily he meets a woodland fairy Aisling, who helps him with him the mission. Brendan needs to face his fears and help Brother Aidan finish the book.As I've mentioned before, I thoroughly enjoyed the director's animation technique because it's charming and magical. The scenes were intricate and colorful. The vibrant and melodious Irish folk musical background scores increase the overall enchanting quality of this film.The cool thing about the story line is that it's partially right. There is a book called "Book of Kells," which is a 9th century New Testament with brilliant embellishments. And it is considered as Ireland's National Treasure. At the end of the film, I also enjoyed how The Secret of Kells uses early Christian Theology to access to a wider audience as it illuminated the audience with its incredible and universal sentiment. The movie has a great message, from young viewers to old ones with striking imagery to captivate the audience.

The Secret of Kells (2009) is quite unusual but interesting. It has beautiful art direction, both colorful and traditional, and a fictional story of how the Book of Kells is miraculously created. After watching it for some time, it feels like as if we are being teleported into their enchanting world.Aside from the visuals, this animated feature has serene music which makes the whole film feels otherworldly. It is magical and we certainly can have a glimpse of the lives of the Kells in the eighth century. Even just a short screen time of the many locations in The Abbey of Kells, it is already able to show the ancient civilisation of the Kells; the abbey is a monastery that shelters people from harm and there is also a scriptorium dedicated to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts. We can see how the society in that era works and live interdependent.The characters in The Secret of Kells (2009) comes in all sizes and shapes but the main characters such as Aisling and Brendan are particularly sweet and innocent. If I have to mention, my favorite characters would be Aisling and the odd-eyed cat Pangur Bán.For instance, we should not forsake what we choose to believe in and we will not know what the world can offer until we explore.In brief, I love the art and backstory of this film. It is sad that the world they live in isn't perfect but it is still a vibrant world. There are only two things I would complain is that why there is no information on the contents of the completed Book of Iona (Kells) and this film is too short!

When people talk about how much they loved this movie, I feel like I somehow missed out. And I watched this movie from start to finish. Its sad I have to give it the same review I did Avatar - great visuals, poor plot.We've got excellent, colorful, stylized animation, with some of the best scenes of nature you'll see outside of a Ghibli film. But, at the end of the day, there's nothing in the plot to take away. Heck, it would have improved if it were a dialog-free short.I didn't particularly like our lead. I didn't hate him, but he's just not interesting, and kind of bratty. But the bigger failure here is his relationship with Aisling. Although she's a main character, she has surprisingly little impact on Aidan and the plot in general. She's a beautiful, powerful spirit of the forest...that could easily be written out of the film. *shrugs*There's numerous other nits I could pick. The whacky, mostly pointless abbots, an underwhelming villain, a perilous quest for a magnifying glass. I almost feel like I'm not giving it a fair chance, and I went in with good expectations. I just felt a visceral "meh" by the time it was done. I did give it some slack though, because, again, it is a beautiful movie. Fans of animation should give it a shot for that alone. Just don't expect great journeys or relationships. Appreciate it for what it is.