Secret of Kells Review

"The Secret of Kells" combines history, mythology and beautiful animation to create a fascinating movie about one of Ireland's national treasures.

Thomas Moore used 2-D animation for "The Secret of Kells" to depict one of the best known origin myths about the Book of Kells. The animation was bright and fresh compared to so many movies nowadays.

Moore's use of suggestion, cutaways, and reveals allows the audience's mind to work and guess at what will happen next with payoffs that happen shortly thereafter.

Is "The Secret of Kells" okay for children? "The Secret of Kells" has a PG rating, but there are scenes of death. So for very young children or those sensitive to death you should preview the movie. Amazon Prime and most video streaming movie services provide free two-minute trailers. If you are okay with the trailer, you should be fine with the movie.

After the movie I looked up the Book of Kells on the internet and was extremely pleased to learn the book is real and that many of the incidents in the movie correspond to the book's real history. My sons,  11 and 13, both enjoyed the movie and seeing pictures of the actual book online made them appreciate the movie more.

The Book of Kells, also known as Book of Columba, currently resides at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. It has been there since 1661. It was created between 570 and 800 A.D., over 1200 years ago! It is a manuscript of Gospels of the New Testament containing extravagantly decorated pages of Christian and Celtic Art. It amazes me that we can still see this book today.

I highly recommend this movie for anyone who likes animated movies and history.

Actual Book of Kells,
image  from Wikipedia Commons

For more information about the book: Wikipedia Book of Kells
Images of book: Trinity College Dublin
Article on Tomm Moore: Animator Tomm Moore

Movie Review: The Hunger Games

At what age should children be allowed to see the movie, The Hungers Games?

Short answer:

It makes a huge world of difference if your child has read the book. If they have, it probably means your child is at least in third grade (almost 4th now). I would say that child should be fine. If they haven’t read the book, I would have reservations for anyone under 10 watching the movie because so much is explained in the book that would help guide a child’s understanding of the movie. When I asked my son if he thought it would be alright for his friends to watch, he said, “Sure. They play Call of Duty and Resident Evil.” (My son does not play Resident Evil.) I asked about the girls in his 5th grade class. He said maybe, it depends on who read the book.

In the end, you know your child best. For my children:

I would not let my 8 year-old second grader who has not read the book watch The Hunger Games. My 10-year old, yes. Mind you, I am not a parent who lets my sons watch every PG-13 movie. I still won’t let them watch The Dark Night, which I found infinitely darker and more disturbing than The Hunger Games. But at the same time, I took my older son to see the first Transformer’s movie when he was 6. I did not let him my younger son see a Transformer’s movie in the theater until he was 8 due to his mindset.

For a more in depth review of The Hunger Games and why I said what I said above read on:

(The long answer.)

There are three things to think about to determine if it’s appropriate for your child.

First, I think it is imperative that anyone who goes to watch the movie reads the book first. When trying to compress the book into a two-hour-and-twenty-minute movie, a lot needs to be cut. And with the book as detailed and layered as it is, many of the nuances will be lost on the audience who hasn’t read the book. For example, when Katniss tells Prim to mind her goat at a particularly moving scene so she can sell its milk for money, you will have no idea what she is talking about since this is the only mention of the goat in the entire movie. Or why is Haymitch a drunk? Or why doesn’t Katniss turn a cold shoulder to Peeta in the beginning? In the book, this is all explained very well.

Second, even having read the book there are subtleties only older children will understand. I was surprised that my 10 ½ year old completely misinterpreted two key scenes at the end of the movie. I give an example of one these at the end of this post, with warnings that it’s a spoiler alert.

Finally, the violence. Yes, it is kids killing kids. You can’t get around that. However, the director did a good job of making most of it brief, while still impressing on you the cruelness of it all. There were three fight images that are a little tough to watch knowing your child is sitting next to you, but my son didn’t seem distraught. And there is one scary “boo” moment, that did make my son jump, but you know exactly when that is going to happen.

***Spoiler alert***
When she shots Kato at the end to end his torment, he didn’t understand that it was an act of mercy. He thought Katniss killed him only because she could. Obvious too an adult, but not so obvious to a child.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the movie and thought it was an excellent adaption of the book.

Movie Review: Transformers 3--For Kids?

My first inclination is to say, no. However, I went with 6 kids from 8 to 10 years old and they all said they liked it.

One ten-year-old said he liked it, but it was a little violent. This was the boy who had no problems with the first Transformers movie when he was 6 or the second one when he was 8. See my post from two years ago.

The problem with Transformers 3 was with was the way in which they depicted the violence.

I never knew one of the criticisms of the first two movies was that the violence needed to be more graphic, more visceral, because these two elements were definitely heightened.

There was no torture this time, and the first half of the movie was clean enough - actually I enjoyed it and the premise; it was the second half of the movie that ruined it for kids' parents:

-Suddenly, the robots bled red lubricant. If one got shot, lubricant went flying. When one got punched in the face, red lubricant poured out of its mouth. In the previous movies, it would be a few machine parts.
-Humans were literally blown apart. As in, let's watch one leg go this way and the other go that way. And when I say humans, it wasn’t just soldiers, but civilians (lots of them).
-There were a couple of graphic scenes of human corpses.
-Also, in the first movie, when Megaton ripped Jazz apart depicting how ruthless he was as the bad guy, it was shocking. Here the Autobots do it with relish to the Decepticons. Don’t get me wrong, the bad guys deserved bad things to happen to them, but suddenly there was no difference in the way either side fought-without remorse, hesitation, or mercy. Tearing an enemy limb from limb is tough to watch, and still wrong, whether it’s the good guys or bad guys doing it.

When I walked out of the theater and saw a little kid, no older than 6, in an Optimus Prime costume, and all the other young kids in line, I felt bad for their parents as they had no idea what they were about to have their children watch.

And before you say, “Hey, come on, it was rated PG-13, parents should know better,” walk into any Toys R Us or Target, and their shelves are filled with Transformers toys and clothing. Are you really saying all this merchandise is targeted to 13 year olds? The other two movies were also PG-13 and neither rose to quite this level of graphic violence.

Really, flying red lubricant? Come on.

Would I take my boys to see the movie again knowing what I know now? My ten year old yes, and probably my eight, because what 8- or 10-year-old boy isn’t dying to see it.

For some reason sequels tend to be darker, look at Harry Potter, it’s just a real bummer that Transformers 3 had to be like this.

(As an aside, the editing for THE BATTLE, basically the entire second half of the movie was horrible, with people, Autobots, and Decepticons popping up out of nowhere, then disappearing, and then finding themselves in unexplained situations. It seemed liked the editors had so much footage, they didn’t know what to stick in and cut out, and then stayed on some scenes way too long and others way too little. Really annoying. In my opinion this was the worst Transformers’ movie by far for even more reasons than I've explained already, but I can’t say more without being a spoiler.)

Transformers 2 - for kids?

Today, I took my son to see Transformers 2 to celebrate his 8 year-old birthday with four of his 8-year-old friends (one was 7 and a half). I gave the parents the PG-13 disclaimer and also a caution I received from someone who'd seen the movie that there was a lot of foul language. All the kids showed up.

And...

The boys loved it! They couldn't stop talking about the different robots and all of the fighting as they walked out of the theater pretending to be the different robots. Three other boys between 6 and 8 were play fighting by the door as we left. So from the kids POV, the movie got a 10.

From an adult perspective - one father said afterwards that his mind was still spinning from all the fighting. Yes, there was a lot of it, especially like the entire last hour.

The movie was entertaining. Yes, I enjoyed the first movie better - it was brand new and I think the fighting was better choreographed: you could always understand who punched who, who did what in a fight and so on. Sometimes there were so many robots and humans fighting all over the place in this one it became a jumble - I guess like a real war. And was that last hour ever a real war (the kids were jumping up in down in their seats when the bad transformers squared off against the good guys just before everyone opened fire).

I enjoyed the movie. Was it good for kids? It really wasn't any worse than the first one in terms of scary stuff.

The bad language, yes there was some, but it wasn't excessively vulgar.

The violence was the same, just more and longer battles.

Sexual situations - nothing really any worse than the first one.

The mild reference to drugs - I'd say 90% of 8 year olds would have no idea they were talking about drugs when the reference came up in the context that it did.

I'd say if your kid is 8 and up and liked the first Transformers movie, he shouldn't have a problem with this one. If he's under 8, it depends on your child's mindset. As I said, I wouldn't take my 6 year old son, but I'll definitely let him watch it on DVD. The rationale for this, the robot violence and loud sound for him would be too overwhelming in a theater, but on a small screen, he'd be fine with it. My 8-year-old son would've had no problem with the sound and violence in a theater when he was six. It depends on your son's mindset, tolerance for loud noises and maturity.

That being said - the kids I went with today loved it and they are no worse for wear.

Books Into Movies

I received the Watchmen graphic novel for Christmas and for the first time in a long time, read a book before the movie came out. While the novel's good, albeit very "graphic" (see my review), I feel a little bummed out when I see the movie previews. It looks like an amazing movie with great special effects, but I already know what's going to happen. Even worse, I read a review in the L.A. Times where the director mentioned how he tried to be faithful to every page of the comic. Where's the fun in watching the movie if you know every intricate plot twist?

Going the opposite direction, I just started The Golden Compass on the recommendation of a friend. I read to page 32 and had to put the book down. I've seen the movie and know exactly what's going to happen. I keep trying to tell myself, this minor part wasn't in the movie, or I couldn't know Lyra's thought process before, or the writing is good, but I found myself spending an inordinate amount of energy trying to pretend and hope that the book would be different. Not the way I want to spend a week or so of the precious little free time I have in my life.

Bummer.