Artemis Fowl
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 What is something that we can use to describe how bad this movie is? Oh yeah, fowl!
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"Top o' the Mornin'!"
— Julius Root
"For whatever reason, it just feels like a hodgepodge of scenes strung together to make a feature-length runtime."
— Chris Stuckmann
Artemis Fowl (known in certain territories as Artemis Fowl: The Secret World) is a 2020 American science fantasy adventure film based on the Irish 2001—12 novels of the same name by Eoin Colfer. It is directed by Kenneth Branagh, and adapted from a screenplay co-written by Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl. The film stars Ferdia Shaw, Lara McDonnell, Josh Gad, Tamara Smart, Nonso Anozie, Colin Farrell, and Judi Dench. The film was originally scheduled for a theatrical release on August 9, 2019 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. In May 2019, the film was pushed back to May 29, 2020. Later, however, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema, the film's theatrical release was canceled and exclusively released on Disney+ on June 12, 2020, but removed from Disney+ on May 26, 2023.
Plot
Artemis Fowl is a 12-year-old genius and descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds. He soon finds himself in an epic battle against a race of powerful underground fairies who may be behind his father's disappearance.
Why It's Fowl
- The movie's main flaw is that it deviates heavily from the source material, making it pretty much an in-name-only adaptation. Articles listing the differences can be found here and here.
- A majority of the movie is narrated by Mulch in the form of a flashback. The books on the other hand are told from a third-person perspective and follow various characters, Diggums being one of them.
- In the books, Artemis taught himself about the fairy world and decided to kidnap one and hold her for ransom in exchange for gold to restore the Fowl family’s billionaire status. But here, he's taught about the fairy world by his father.
- Artemis' mother was the only person apart from him and Butler in the mansion in the books following her husband's disappearance. But here, she's dead prior to the events of the film.
- Near the end of the film, Artemis and Holly declare themselves as friends while in the books, they actually hated each other and only worked together out of necessity.
- This film is the living reflection of how a development hell is like a production hell since it originally started its production in 2001, it was given to a company named Miramax Films (at the time they were owned by Disney) like the one who acquired the rights to the film and Lawrence Guterman to direct it, although in 2003 It was confirmed that the film had little chance of happening, for 2011 Jim Sheridan was interested in directing the film, but in the end, nothing happened, in 2013 it was announced that Disney is developing a project, which began production during 2017 and was planned to premiere in mid-2019, but in the end, it had to be delayed until 2020 because Disney wanted to improve it.
- Apart from the aforementioned, another reason why it shows that this film had a production hell, was that the film was re-recorded up to three times because in its test transmissions the film had an extremely disastrous reaction, which would explain its high budget as its uneven production or development.
- The editing is very bad since there's almost no transition between scene to scene.
- Unfunny and weak attempts at humor, especially the Irish jokes in some scenes that are used by the film's female version of Julius Root.
- Very weak and unoriginal plot that steals elements from the other movie franchises, such as Harry Potter, Men in Black, the already bad Percy Jackson movies, and Spy Kids.
- Many of the characters barely resemble their book counterparts, both in appearance and characterization.
- Artemis, for instance, was changed from a physically weak, but calculating and strategic villainous criminal mastermind with a tangible sympathetic side as well into a heroic, friendly, emotional (to the point where he reacts to getting the news about his father by screaming, dropping a jug of milk and needing to be physically carried away from the television by Dom), and athletic person (one of the very first scenes of the film having him go surfing, even though on the very first page of the very first book, it specifically stated that "Sun did not suit Artemis", on top of his already aforementioned lack of physical gag that became a running gag) with barely any personality so that the movie could have a heroic protagonist.
- The worst part? This change was made by Kenneth Branagh himself, who thought that audiences wouldn't be able to handle a 12-year-old villainous character, showing off his incompetence.
- The film also tries to make him into a criminal mastermind at the end, but the way it's executed is downright ridiculous. Given how he never showed any signs of undergoing a change in morality at any point in the film. And it also feels slapped for the sake of the movie having one thing that was faithful to the book, but it instead comes off as contradictory to the previous events and laughably forced.
- Butler's first name is used frequently, whereas the butlers' first names are never made public in the books. Not to mention that here, he absolutely hates being called "Butler" in spite of the fact that it was his actual surname in the books.
- Artemis' father isn't actually a crime lord in this film and is portrayed as somehow both a businessman and an art dealer revealed to have pulled off heists for noble aims.
- Julius Roots, a major supporting character in the books and graphic novel adaptations, is now a female who acts like a major anti-villain at first for no apparent reason.
- Artemis, for instance, was changed from a physically weak, but calculating and strategic villainous criminal mastermind with a tangible sympathetic side as well into a heroic, friendly, emotional (to the point where he reacts to getting the news about his father by screaming, dropping a jug of milk and needing to be physically carried away from the television by Dom), and athletic person (one of the very first scenes of the film having him go surfing, even though on the very first page of the very first book, it specifically stated that "Sun did not suit Artemis", on top of his already aforementioned lack of physical gag that became a running gag) with barely any personality so that the movie could have a heroic protagonist.
- According to Cynical Reviews, the film has a problem with "racebending".
- Holly Short, who had dark skin in the books, is white in the film. This is inexcusable, as the film was released during the height of the George Floyd riots.
- Butler and Juliet, who are Eurasian in the books (the former of which is also described as being able to pass as both Japanese and Russian), end up being black in the film.
- The movie is over-reliant on exposition from Mulch, which comes off as boring and condescending.
- Horrendously abysmal special effects that look very fake and unrealistic.
- The biggest example of this is Mulch Diggums' mouth stretching, especially when he uses this to dig through the dirt, as the scene looks really creepy.
- Terrible acting, especially from Ferdia Shaw as Artemis himself.
- There is an inaccuracy concerning the Republic of Ireland, saying that Ireland is part of Britain. Ireland has been independent of Britain since 1922.
- Not only that, but the opening also shows that Mulch Diggums is taken by the British authorities. That would cause an international incident in real life, as the British government did not ask the Irish government about bringing Mulch into their country.
- Very terrible filler and pacing that feels like it should have been much longer than that.
- Weak direction by Kenneth Branagh, who directed better films like Thor and Cinderella (2015).
- Sequel-Baiting: The end shows that Mulch had a tracking device, Then Artemis and his father find him via helicopter and, along with Holly, go to hunt down Koboi’s associates. However, because of the problems about the movie listed above, you tell that the rest of this story will never happen.
Redeeming Qualities
- The soundtrack by Patrick Doyle is decent and nice to listen to.
- While the characters are very unfaithful to the book series and graphic novel adaptations, certain locations and some of their clothing are the closest things for being faithful to the series.
- Decent cinematography.
- The backgrounds used for the film are surprisingly good in spite of the awful special effects.
- Like Battlefield Earth, another film based on a novel that shares its name from 1982, a film franchise based on the Artemis Fowl series of books (otherwise known as The Fowl Adventures) had potential, as the premise of the books already sounded pretty interesting. Sadly, also like Battlefield Earth (which suffered a similar fate), because of how horrible it was executed, and due to the ugly reception, if there even are/were plans for a sequel, that's likely not gonna happen.
- Some of the CGI can be passable.
Reception
Artemis Fowl was near-universally panned by both critics and audiences, with heavy criticism being reserved for its plot, dialogue, characters, acting, screenplay, special effects, and unfaithfulness to the source material, although Patrick Doyle's score received praise. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 8% based on 167 reviews, and an average rating of 3.70/10. The website's critic's consensus reads "A would-be franchise-starter that will anger fans of the source material and leave newcomers befuddled; Artemis Fowl is frustratingly flightless". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100 based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
Chris Stuckmann gave this movie grade of F, explaining how he said it feels like a hodgepodge of scenes strung together to make a feature-length runtime.
Spanish film site eCartelera ranked Artemis Fowl sixth in its list of the 10 worst movies of 2020.[1]
WatchMojo ranked it #1, the worst movie of 2020
Videos
Trivia
- The film was originally meant to be released in theatres, but it instead would go straight to Disney+ due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- This film is the first Disney+ Original that was filmed as a theatrical release. That is why the Disney+ Original logo does not appear, unlike all of the previous Disney+ Original films.
References
External Links
Artemis Fowl at the Internet Movie Database
Artemis Fowl on Letterboxd
Artemis Fowl on Metacritic
Artemis Fowl on Rotten Tomatoes
Comments
- Bad media
- Bad films
- Based on books
- Disney
- Live-action films
- 2020s films
- Family films
- Adventure films
- Fantasy films
- Science fiction films
- Rip-off films
- Bad movies from good franchises
- Films aware of how bad they are
- Controversial films
- American films
- Abusing the mascot
- Boring films
- Disney+ films
- Featured on TV Tropes' So Bad, It's Horrible
- Terrible grasp on the source material