The Book of Kells is often considered the pinnacle of illuminated manuscripts and is regarded as one of Ireland’s finest treasures. The Secret of Kells blends the loose historical facts about the book’s creation and with elements of Celtish mythology, focusing on the fictional young boy Brendan, an orphan under the care of his uncle, the Abbot Cellach. The Abbot, fearing attacks from marauding Vikings, leads the construction of a massive wall that encircles the community, and dismisses all the efforts of the monastery’s manuscript creation as secondary to the safety of their lives. This utilitarian existence is stifling to young Brendan, and he quickly befriends a famed monk of legendary illuminating ability, the Brother Aidan, and works in secret to help him complete what will eventually transform into the Book of Kells.

The highlights of the film involve Brendan sneaking out into the forest that surrounds their walled community to gather items necessary for manuscript production. He meets a woodland fairy named Aisling, a sparkling white young girl able to conjure the magic of the forest, and fights the dreaded Crom, a phosphorescent snake ripped from an Atari game.

But aside from these excursions, there isn’t much story here. Not a word is mentioned about the content of the Book of Kells, which is odd given it is a manuscript of the Gospels written in a monastery. The climatic battle with the Vikings feels obligatory, and the film’s narrative climax has been subdued to a state of nothingness. It’s also odd that Brendan finds nothing contradictory about requiring the aid of supernatural beings of Celtish mythology to help copy a document that denies their very existence. Brendan, a literate monk-in-training would surely be aware of this discrepancy between the text his community holds sacred and the reality he discovers outside the walls of Kells. Wouldn’t a more relevant conflict for Brendan have been to learn not the secrets of calligraphy, but of religious intolerance, and the more natural climax arrived from having to overcome the limited worldview of his benefactors? Instead Brendan just dances about in the forest, eagerly transcribing a religious text he apparently knows nothing about.

Brendan doesn’t feel real as a character, perhaps because his reactions to extradinary events are so off. Here is a boy who grew up within a strict, monastic setting where he was taught from birth that the world that exists in the Bible is the true world, and when he meets a shapeshifting fairy, what is his reaction? Is it disbelief? Is he faced with the horror of a world he has not been prepared for? How does he feel? Well, Brendan simply expresses a momentary shock and quickly asks the fairy to help him collect berries.

The other characters – if you can call them characters, they’re more of designs – don’t really have personalities beyond what you’d find in preschool programming. They’re circles and squares, not much more. Even the Abbot Cellach doesn’t seem to have any real reason to want to build the wall or a past that made him so strict. He just exists because someone has to try to stop Brendan from doing whatever he likes.

The only thing The Secret of Kells has going for it is the animation. While the most impressive effects rarely have any real narrative purpose, they are aesthetically pleasing nonetheless. A sequence that stands out is Brendan’s first entrance into the woods. Here the flatness of the animation and the detailed twists of the landscape effectively mimic the style of the Book of Kells, and color is used more significantly than in the earlier scenes. (Images 5 through 11) There are many interesting shots throughout, mostly designed to emulate the look of medieval art, but sometimes with a modern twist. We get traditional triptychs, but also split screens that look more like comic books. (Images 18 and 21) Unfortunately, the animation is not consistently good; the opening sequence especially seems like a stylish Saturday morning cartoon, and features a slew of politically incorrect representations of different races. (Image 3) But overall, the stylish animation pleases and impresses.

The score of the film features traditional Irish and medieval music, as well as a lullaby based on a traditional Irish poem. This lullaby seems unnecessary to the plot, but isn’t bad in itself.

The Secret of Kells is probably the only chance you’ll get to see a feature-length animated film about medieval calligraphy. The spectacle of the animation is a high point, and almost makes up for the fact that there is absolutely no substance behind the style.