Seriously, there’s dropping the ball then there’s firing it into the ground and trying to hit magma.
SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free, but who cares)
Artemis Fowl, Jr. (Ferdia Shaw) is a 12 year old supergenius son of Artemis Fowl, Sr. (Colin Farrell), a wealthy businessman and folk tale aficionado. One day, the older Artemis goes missing, having been accused of stealing a number of artifacts, and the younger one gets a call from his abductor, Opal Koboi (Hong Chau). It turns out Artemis had stolen a rare magical item called the Aculos. Domovoi Butler (Nonso Anozie), the Fowl family butler, reveals to Artemis that the Fowls have been dealing with magical creatures for generations. Artemis will have to deal with fairy police officers Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) and Julius Root (Dame Judi Dench), a giant dwarf named Mulch (Josh Gad), and other magical troubles to get his dad back with the help of Domovoi and Juliet Butler (Tamara Smart), Dom’s niece and Artemis’s best friend.
END SUMMARY
This movie sucks.
I have been told by a few parents who watched this movie that their small children enjoyed the film, but I have a difficult time believing anyone who has gotten to middle school will find any happiness in this experience. It suffers from some of the worst flaws you can find in the cinema.
First, it’s a lot of tell, not show. The entire movie is narrated by Josh Gad’s character, who apparently is the mega hype man for Artemis Fowl, so rather than actually see Artemis be smart, we’re just told that he’s the smartest person on the planet. Despite that, he chooses to say that he knows everything more often than he actually uses that knowledge.
Second, it’s unbelievably boring. If you’re not going to focus solely on action, then people need a reason to focus on dialogue or plot development. Here, there are a lot of sequences of people having conversations in which the audience has no vested interest. Saying that a character’s dad died doesn’t make it tragic unless we have a feeling as to what everyone’s emotional connection to them was.
Third, the acting wasn’t able to overcome weak characterizations. The lead isn’t strong enough to sustain the focus, the supporting characters aren’t strong enough to buoy the soft parts, and the villain is mostly non-existent within the film. It mostly hurts that they changed Artemis Fowl from the underaged head of a criminal empire to a generic child hero. Having a cold antihero as the lead can at least force some memorable performances, but the version of Artemis from this movie could have been pulled from half a dozen other movies.
Last, the plot sucks. It’s way too convoluted while not being as smart as the film wants it to be. The fact that Artemis Sr has been kidnapped doesn’t really have that much bearing on the actions of the fairy forces attacking Artemis Jr, which make up most of the movie. It’s tangentially connected, because they’re related to the same item, but the whole film feels disjointed.
I spent much of the movie wondering if you can even do an adaptation of Artemis Fowl to begin with. The project languished in Development Hell for 18 years, following the first book’s popularity and riding off of the Harry Potter young adult lit boom. This film tried to combine two books, similar to what the Jim Carrey A Series of Unfortunate Events film did, but the thing about Artemis Fowl is that a lot of the book is pretty intricate in how it represents Artemis and crew, which allows for more development of their reputations and capabilities. Also, they tried to make Artemis athletic in this film, something that he mostly averts in the original story, which, again, seems like more of a generic child hero than the character in the book. Honestly, a major studio probably just can’t make a children’s film with a morally conflicted lead.
Overall, avoid this movie. I’m sorry, guys, but maybe if this fails the way it should, someone will finally green light it as a TV series, which is probably a better way to handle the novels.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.
The Joker On The Sofa 