'Artemis Fowl' Film Review
Disney's newest potential franchise is a consistent disappointment
Let me issue a massive disclaimer before I start this review: I don't know how qualified I am to review this. Unlike a lot of people, Eoin Colfer's 'Artemis Fowl' series completely eluded me as a kid, so a lot of the context has been lost on me aside from what research I've done and friends I've talked to who WERE avid fans.
In other words, if you were looking for a distinctly whole perspective on 'Artemis Fowl' as an adaptation, you won't get it here.
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I love Kenneth Branagh as a director. He's had his misfires, but his Shakespeare adaptations (specifically 1993's 'Much Ado About Nothing' and 1996's 'Hamlet'), the first 'Thor' film, and his live-action 'Cinderella' are all excellent projects. I'll even stand up for his 2017 version of 'Murder on the Orient Express' for the level of casting and pacing that film needed to hold itself together.
You'll notice with most of those that they have one thing in common: they're all adaptations of prominent, but widely differing, source material. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean consistent excellence, but I had enough faith from those projects to consider Branagh's attachment to 'Artemis Fowl' as a good thing. Even with the coronavirus delays causing Disney to just drop the project on Disney+ and my ensuing worries from fan complaints, with this team involved, it could at least be decent, right?
To say I've got some mixed thoughts is an understatement. I don't want to use this review to hop on the tidal waves of visceral scorn that 'Artemis Fowl' has been getting from fans and critics alike. However, from everything I've heard about the original source material, combined with the utter mess of the end result, it certainly isn't giving me as a newcomer much to work with.
That's the simplest I can call 'Artemis Fowl:' a mess, and the worst part is that it's almost dangling its potential in front of you the whole time, yanked away by obvious cases of heavy edits, bizarre character choices, and a cast that simply cannot work with those choices to keep the characters interesting.
Artemis Fowl Jr. (played by Ferdia Shaw) is the twelve-year-old son of antiquities dealer Artemis Fowl Sr. (played by Colin Farrell). With his mother dead and father constantly out of the house on "business," Artemis himself has become isolated and over-educated compared to his classmates and finds solace in the stories his father tells him of the fantasy world: trolls, elves, fairies and magic that are as real as humans.
When his father is kidnapped and framed for a series of worldwide thefts, Artemis learns that all of those stories were in fact real and that a powerful being known as Opal Koboi has kidnapped his father. Opal demands that Artemis find the legendary Aculos, a key artifact to the culture of the fairies with untold power, in exchange for Artemis Senior's release.
Artemis teams up with his family butler, Dom (played by Nonso Anozie), a young fairy officer named Holly (played by Lara McDonnell), and a large dwarf named Mulch (played by Josh Gad) to discover the secrets of this new world and hopefully save his father in time.
'Artemis Fowl's biggest problem is that it can't successfully bring us into its world. Not just the world of the fantastical, but even Artemis' basic story arc. From the very start, the film tries to get us to buy into Artemis' genius, his sense of always being a step ahead of everyone, even the adults in his life.
Branagh, along with screenwriters Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl, wants to be able to drop us right into this world, which can work if the characters are interesting enough to hold the audiences' attention, and they just feel half-baked. I could chalk this up to the noteworthy changes from the novels, but I actually think this could have worked provided more than a few more dialogue changes in the first 15 minutes.
We could see more of the complexities between Artemis and his dad, play a prank on a student to show that sense of intellectual prowess, or even give him more screen time with his supposed friend and Dom's niece, Juliet (played by Tamara Smart). There are not difficult things to add (especially with the films barely hour-and-a-half runtime), but the film just wants to get to the good stuff, or what it thinks is the good stuff.
Even if we're just looking at the resulting story, it's not fleshed out nearly enough. The villain is an afterthought for a second film that might never happen, the power dynamics inside the Lower Elements Police (LEP) feel completely barebones, and the Aculos is basically just whatever the writers want it to be.
That's not even getting into the cast who, for the most part, I'm a bit stumped on. This feels like a glaring exception to Branagh's usual track record of bringing together excellent casts. I can give newcomers Ferdia Shaw and Lara McDonnell passes for at least trying to navigate some of the inconsistencies of their material, but others don't fare nearly as well.
Josh Gad at least looks like he's having fun at points, but the combination of his gritted voice and omnipresent narration never becomes charming (think somewhere between Gimli from 'Lord of the Rings' and Pete from 'A Goofy Movie,' it's not great). All that's left is Nonso Anozie as an underwhelming bodyguard figure, Judi Dench trying to channel every tired police chief you've ever seen, and the usually dynamic Colin Farrell mumbling in chains for 2/3 of his screen time.
Even with all of those points, I still have to be that guy and give credit to a few things. I've always been a fan of Patrick Doyle's music, but actually thought the Celtic-infused orchestrations he brings to this film really work. I also appreciate some of the attempts to be creative, between the fairy tech, the costume designs, and even with some of the wannabe quirky choices of dialogue (including a pretty fun David Bowie joke).
Plus, if nothing else, it's incredibly short; most of the story takes place in one of two locations and, in a weird way, that smaller scale MIGHT get some audiences to pay attention.
As I said, I can't comment that much on if 'Artemis Fowl' fails because of lack of faithfulness to the source material, but I can certainly comment on how it fails as a film. Its misplaced focus, scattershot interest in its characters, and distinct lack of fun feel like empty disappointments coming from a first time viewer.
Kenneth Branagh had a bad day at the office, but I put significantly more blame on Disney for misguided oversight and blatant disregard for cohesive storytelling that feels utterly befuddling considering their track record. A good soundtrack and some half-decent ideas aren't enough to save a movie too afraid of itself to make any real connections and, fan or not, that's just sad.
Overall, I give 'Artemis Fowl' 2.5/10.
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