SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Just the latest in a long line of poorly handled YA novel film adaptations, Artemis Fowl wastes its source material with poor effects, an awful story and wooden performances.
The Percy Jackson and Eragon fandoms need to make space: there’s a new kid in town. As Kenneth Branagh’s jumbled, malformed adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl sails through the air to land in an ignominious heap on Disney Plus, fans of the franchise may at least be able to take some solace in the fact that the nightmare is well and truly over. This is a film that by all accounts has been stuck in development hell since 2001 and been marketed with a couple of trailers that didn’t exactly inspire confidence, to put it mildly. It’s finally here, and it might just be bad enough that Disney’s executives might even think twice before continuing the fantasy franchise they so badly wanted to kickstart with this film. Perhaps they should wait a bit – years if necessary – before trying their luck again.
This is an adaptation, though the term only loosely applies. For the unfamiliar, the book series revolves around the twelve-year-old Irish criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl, whose quest to restore his family fortune involves an audacious plan to rob gold from the magical Fairy People who live deep underground. Artemis, our anti-hero and a genius by all accounts, uncovers their secrets and succeeds at kidnapping a fairy cop by the name of Holly Short, in order to extract a ransom. Branagh’s adaptation and its screenplay, written by Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl, smashes together the events of the first book and the second, which sees Artemis rescuing his father, into a disjointed hunt for a MacGuffin that can open the way to other dimensions. We are assured that it’s very important for...reasons.
The film (yet another term that only loosely applies) has a runtime of 90 minutes, but achieves the dubious distinction of managing to feel twice that long. It’s a complicated chore, where the narrative doesn’t quite fulfil the basic requirements of providing characters that are even vaguely interesting, and giving them arcs that are resolved by the time the credits roll. Nor does it do anything more than cursory worldbuilding, usually delivered via clunky exposition dumps from Josh Gad, whose narration is a paradox: jarring but also desperately needed for things to make sense. At points, it even seems like two very different cuts of the movie were made and random scenes from each were awkwardly spliced together in the editing room into a parody of a real adaptation of Colfer’s book series. The dialogue is frequently cringeworthy and the jokes, including a jab about David Bowie being a fairy, are terribly unfunny.
The cast vary widely. Colin Farrell shows up for the first fifteen minutes before making his escape via helicopter: a solid decision on his part. Judi Dench continues a losing streak that began with Cats, standing at the foot of a fairy ship in a bright green combat uniform, growling “top of the morning”, but given her formidable repertoire, she’s more than earned the right to just have fun. And she does appear to be, so this movie isn’t a total loss since at least one person enjoyed it. I genuinely don’t have a clue what Josh Gad, who plays a giant dwarf (the oxymoron should clue you into how much thought actually went into this movie), is up to, or what point the movie is trying to make by showing him being discriminated against for being tall. Honestly, it just seems like they forgot to do his CGI and had to adlib a reshoot.
Meanwhile, Ferdia Shaw’s blank-faced performance in the lead role transforms the character into the least interesting part of his own movie. Towards the end of the movie, Artemis attempts to claim the title of criminal mastermind, but it’s thoroughly unconvincing since the movie shows us so little of the devious criminal anti-hero that gave the books their buzz. On the other hand, Lara McDonnell, who plays Holly Short, acquits herself well. Her character is likeable enough that you’d much rather just watch a spinoff about her, but of course the film doesn’t do right by her either. She’s given supporting character status plus a half-formed arc that’s meant to establish parallels between her and Artemis, but ultimately proves to be all smoke and no fire. Her arc in the books, in which she’s forced to confront the latent sexism of the fairy police force, has been entirely discarded; quite possibly the first time Disney has willingly opted not to plug female empowerment. Truly strange. Together, they battle a villain who is - technically - part of the movie, in the sense that they appear on screen. However, the fact that they don’t actually do anything of note doesn’t seem to bother the scriptwriters much.
What else to say really? It’s a festival of questionable CGI and awkward costuming whose fight sequences are about as exciting, if not less so, than watching paint dry. The people behind it seem to have made this film using SparkNotes rather than just reading them to see what all the fuss is about. Harry Potter this ain’t, but then again a bad adaptation of a book is nothing new under the sun. Hopefully Disney decides to leave this alone for a while before trying again.
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