What? You’ve never heard of this movie? Sure you have! It was nominated for an Oscar last year in “Best Animated Feature.” You remember: It was the nominee you hadn’t heard of!

I’ve been waiting for this movie to come into town for quite a while. Why? Here’s why. Sure, the bland trailer had left me without a clue as to what the movie was really about. Still, just look at that animation! The unique visual style was more than enough to pique my interest and ensure that I’d be seeing this movie.

So I did a bit of research. Turns out that the Book of Kells does actually exist… and it’s a Bible. An extremely ornate and old Bible, but a Bible nonetheless. First of all, I’ve already seen a movie about protecting a Bible and it didn’t go well. Secondly, this is one devout agnostic that doesn’t want to sit through two hours of proselyting. It turns out I needn’t have worried.

Christianity in itself isn’t really ever touched upon. The movie instead addresses faith, which isn’t necessarily the same thing. Moreover, Kells is only ever interested in faith as an aspect of the movie’s primary theme: Security. A bit of security is a good thing, posits the film, but relying on it too much is shortsighted and may eventually be destructive.

So the book doesn’t represent Christianity, nor does it represent enlightenment to the ignorant masses (*coughElicough*). Rather, the book represents imagination. It represents art and creation. The acts of protecting and completing the book come to symbolize hope and courage. Basically, the book isn’t vital because humanity can’t be saved without it. The book is vital because without those things it represents, we have nothing to live for.

This is a lesson hard-learned by the chief abbot of Kells, voiced by Brendan Gleeson. Abbot Cellach is an antagonist in the technical sense of the word, but he’s hardly a villain. He’s not evil, just obsessed with his walls and his towers to the point where he’s lost sight of what they’re meant to protect. He’s so shortsighted that security has become an end in itself and he doesn’t even know it. Still, he’s hardly an overblown dictator holed up in his castle (I’m looking at you, Denethor). Cellach is out on the field, working and building beside those he commands. He’s also soft-spoken, though authority and cold logic are dripping from every syllable. Kudos to Gleeson for that.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Aidan. He’s an old and revered illustrator, the primary artist and guardian of the book since the death of his colleagues. You might expect him to be a typical “magical old mentor” character a la Mr. Miyagi or Yoda, and you’d partially be right. But Aidan defies that archetype in that he is not perfect. He doesn’t have all the answers, he doesn’t possess any magic beyond being a superb artist and he sure as hell doesn’t sprout the ability to kick ass when necessary. He’s simply a means of protecting the book and he helps encourage our young hero Brendan to gain the strength and knowledge necessary to help shoulder that burden. He’s only ever what Brendan needs. Nothing more and nothing less.

Then there’s Aisling. Just as Puck is my favorite character in “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Ariel is my favorite character in “The Tempest,” Aisling is my favorite character in this movie. To be clear, she’s not nearly the supernatural trickster that the other two were. Still, she’s every bit as youthful, powerful, unpredictable and fun as her forebears. Put simply, she represents everything that’s amazing to be found in the outside, undiscovered world. Adding to her appeal is that she’s not very well-defined. She could be an angel, a fairie, a ghost or some other spirit. But as with every character in this movie, she’s not perfect. There are things she cannot do and things that can hurt her badly. This pays off tremendously halfway through the story.

Last and foremost is Brendan himself, who is a very effective everyman. I find the character comparable to Ofelia in Pan’s Labyrinth in that they are both courageous, occasionally brash and very proud of their capacities for imagination, but are otherwise unremarkable children. Of course, it must be pointed out that a mystical doohickey gives Brendan most of his drawing prowess instantly. For any other movie, I’d call bullshit. Here, I don’t have the heart.

Brendan took that tchotchke from a beast that even Aisling was deathly afraid of. He got to that monster by defying the safety and authority that had defined his life up until that point. And he defeated the demon through imagination and persistence in one of the movie’s most visually amazing sequences (and that’s saying a lot). Thus, it’s established that though there is evil and danger outside a secure bubble, it can be overcome. Every theme in the movie was represented in that sequence. It may have been a deus ex machina, but dammit, it was a hard-earned deus ex machina.

The villains, by the way, are extraordinary. Primary among them are the vikings, but these aren’t scenery-chewing, over-the-top baddies led by a main villain like the Huns in Mulan. No, these vikings are a faceless, shapeless terror. They are the monsters under every toddler’s bed. I know that such unambiguous terror runs counter to the nuanced villain that’s so in vogue right now, but it works here. This is, after all, a fairy tale and nobody wants a sympathetic Evil Stepmother or a nuanced Big Bad Wolf. Which reminds me: The wolves in this movie? Really Big and Really Bad. These villains are quite scary and they do kill frequently. They’re always terrifying but never in a way that scars.

I’ve touched briefly on the visuals before and trust me: YouTube does not do this movie justice. It’s the best I can do right now, but even the highest-def trailer is just the tip of the iceberg. I know that this isn’t the first movie to look like a children’s book come to life, but this… this is something else. Every snowflake is an exquisitely-detailed Celtic knot. The characters are designed with simplicity in mind, often resembling primary shapes in a way that’s visually very appealing in a subconscious kind of way. The villains, meanwhile, have almost no discernible features. They are quite literally shadows, often set against red backgrounds. Like I said: Faceless, shapeless terrors. The animation simply defies description in its fluidity and it’s accompanied by beautiful Celtic music.

This movie only really falters at the ending. The pacing is thrown off between the climax and the ending and there are quite a few characters who are alive and unchanged even though they really shouldn’t be. However, there is one part of the ending that I will defend: The vikings are never defeated onscreen. This may seem anticlimactic, but I disagree, firstly because the climax was just fine the way it was. Secondly, I’d argue that our heroes didn’t win because they defeated evil. They won because they outlasted evil. It may not be much, but when the objective is creation against an enemy bent only on destruction, it’s enough.

I have absolutely no difficulty in giving this my highest recommendation for adults and kids of any age.