Toon Zone Talkback - "The Secret of Kells": Yes, It Really Is That Good

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ruggedwarrior_love

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This is the talkback thread for "The Secret of Kells": Yes, It Really Is That Good.

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Yes, it REALLY is that good. I had no problems with the time or ending. I'd say The Secret of Kells should have won the Academy Award.
 
I just finished watching this OnDemand, and I loved every minute of it. It's simply a beautiful film.

I think not mentioning that the Book of Kells was, in fact, a bible (to be precise an illustrated manuscript of the four Gospels of the New Testament) was also to avoid people assuming the film to be a purely Religious film.
 
I should probably see this. I remember it getting fairly mixed reviews, actually. Numerous references and comparisons to "Pixar" pops up in many reviews.

Which means that this film may be underrated since we know most critics don't give a crud about animation if it's not from a big studio.
 
It's got a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, 88% from their top critics, and an 81 from Metacritic. I really wouldn't call that "mixed".
 
Toon Zone Talkback - "The Secret of Kells": Yes, It Really Is That Good

I really should check this out some day. I?ve always liked Cartoon Saloon; they made this, but most people don?t realize that they also made Skunk Fu! and are currently developing a Skunk Fu! movie in addition to other projects. I think they have a bright future.
 
Honestly, I've only heard of Secret of Kells, but never watched the film. I did manage to watch a trailer to see what the movie was going to be like. In my views, it looks like a very good and genius movie. I may have to rent it on DVD or something. It'd be so fun if Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel aired it one night in the coming future.

By the way, Secret of Kells really did win an Academy Award.



Wow, I didn't see that one coming!

I agree with you, The Huntsman, Cartoon Saloon is going to have a brighter future, based on everything I'm reading.
 
I'm actually in the "good but not that good" camp. Beautiful film but the main character's a bore and the more intriguing parts of the story go underdeveloped.
 
I just got through watching the Blu-ray and I think this movie was last year's Persepolis: a wonderful movie where its few shortcomings are more than made up for by its sheer audacity and the way it exploits the medium so spectacularly. I am a sucker for animation that is designed to look like some other work of art, and the way they took illuminated manuscripts and turned them into animation is just awe-inspiring to me.

I can't say that I found the ending rushed or truncated at all, although I wish those 10 minutes of cut footage were on the Blu-ray somehow, just so I could see more of the movie. I also quite liked the voice acting, especially for Brother Aidan, but I'll freely admit that it's hard to make something with an authentic Irish brogue sound bad :). It's true that Brendan is a bit underdeveloped as a character, but that seems to be by design, since the filmmakers wanted him to be the audience identification character and I think he succeeds admirably in that role.

My absolute favorite bit has to be the confrontation with Crom Cruach, where Brendan ends up defeating him using the power of imagination and a piece of chalk that he uses to draw lines. In addition to being another dazzling scene visually in a movie filled with dazzling scenes, it serves as a powerful metaphor on a number of levels, about the power of imagination and of the line (and, perhaps by extension, of the power of hand-drawn animation itself). I have no idea how much of that was intended by the filmmakers (I will have to listen to the commentary track), but I still thought it was pretty damn cool.

So now that I've finally seen all the Oscar nominees from last year, I will say that I think this movie was quite a bit better than Princess and the Frog and Fantastic Mr. Fox, and probably about on par with Coraline. I'm not quite sure if it's better than Up, even if I think Up completely deserved the Oscar that it won. I can also get behind nominating this movie over Ponyo.
 
Hmm, I saw it last night and was impressed with the art direction and design work. But dramatically it did feel a bit underwhelming to me. If you stripped away the fantastic art design, it did feel a bit of the ol' run-of-the-mill-ish "boy coming of age" story. You can even argue that it wasn't a coming of age story at all but more a story of how the book came to be...but it's certainly not the most interesting story ever told. As a mood piece it was quite good, but sometimes I felt they didn't always realize that they should have emphasized the mood over the story. Whenever the film started to get on with the story, I got bored. But when it focused on the mood, like those quiet moments in the forest, or the shadowy feel of the "prison" scene, it really sang.

That said, I've said in the past that story isn't everything to me in a film, and I think Secret of Kells should go down, I think, in some notable manner in film animation history. Art design-wise, it would be the most visually interesting animated movie of that year along with Ponyo, IMO. Probably more daring, too.

I personally would have taken out Princess and The Frog and put in Ponyo over it, Ed. Secret of Kells deserves to stay in based on the sheer audacity of the art design. Do agree that Fantastic Mr. Fox ended up a bit overrated though.

This really was big film animation year. And my opinion on the offerings has changed quite a bit since a few months ago too. UP has fallen off for me personally, and Coraline has gone up a bit. I still think highly of Ponyo that year, but Coraline is pretty much with it in my opinion. I'd place Kells about on par with UP on my personal faves of that year. Which means around 3rd or 4th.

I should stop before I start on my rant on the ol' "Oscars = quality? Or NOT?" rant.:sweat:
 
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