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Artemis Fowl Signals the Death Knell of the Youth Fantasy Film


I was warned.
I’ll give Disney this, they know when they’ve got a commercial disaster on their hands and given the circumstances, what to do with it. Artemis Fowl, incomprehensibly directed by Kenneth Branagh based on the 2001 childrens’ fantasy novel by Eoin Colfer, was never going to make much money. With nearly twenty years on it, a lot of the fanbase has withered away, its’ brand of Harry Potter-esque youth fantasy is no longer relevant, and nobody was really asking for it. So while COVID has forced the delay of a number of other Disney titles (Mulan is absolutely going to be moved from its release in July), the company decided to just dump this film, which had already been moved from last year, onto their new streaming platform -itself hungering for any new content regardless of quality.
In a way it’s still kind of sad though how little faith and consequent effort Disney had in this film. Nothing in it is held to any particular standard, and thus its’ high points are merely things that are generally competent: the production design of the manor, some of the visual effects, the inoffensive cinematography, Nonso Anozie’s performance -yet nothing rises to a level of genuinely impressive artistry. Much like The Dark Tower, fragments of the compelling ideas and world that no doubt made the book series a success are palpable, but executed in a gallingly incomprehensible fashion.
The film, like so many of its like precursors, is centred on a preteen boy: one Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw), an Irish rich kid whose father (Colin Farrell collecting an easy paycheck) was recently discovered to have been behind a series of high profile heists. A believer in a secret underground world of fairies (encompassing all fairy tale creatures), he is kidnapped by one, and Artemis is left to find a way to rescue him through a convoluted plan involving the capture of a fairy and a magical MacGuffin.
All of this takes place within a trite framing device anchored by a desperately-attempting-to-play-against-type Josh Gad (he’s a pickpocket Dwarf, made human-size out of laziness, and nakedly mimicking Star Lord) , narrating before an inquiry much of what the film can’t be bothered to show. His script is so obviously weak, but the internal structure is even more compromised by this bewildering choice. Characterization is consigned to the margins, the pacing wildly fluctuates, there’s too much plot to digest yet little consistent story to speak of. The overarching conflict is a joke, complete with a parody of a fantasy villain, and the motivations of both Artemis and co-protagonist Holly (Lara McDonnell), an elf reconnaissance officer, are inexcusably bland. The film prefers the dimmest archetypes, the basest themes to anything remotely nuanced or interesting, and it’s offensive the way it expects you to care.
Ineptitude shines throughout Artemis Fowl outside of its fundamental story and character failings. From a fresh-off-of-Cats Judi Dench grimly ordering others around in an unconvincing gravelly Irish accent (it’s both funny and sad to see), to an almost fetishized idea of Ireland and misunderstanding of its folklore, to a slew of bizarre CGI choices ranging from the inexplicably surreal to the flat-out horrifying. Neither of the two major set-pieces have any real weight behind them, the latter -which is conceptually quite fun- being a particular mess of unintelligible action and geography. Both feature a troll as the primary boss, but are infinitely less compelling than the similar sequence from the first Harry Potter film -which itself is not very good. And it can’t be denied that for a high concept fantasy movie, there’s very little variety in setting and aesthetic. Nothing is especially unique about the Fowl mansion, and the Fairy world, for its mix of magic and technology, is rather pale and cold. I actually miss the palette and ornate visual spontaneity of Branagh’s last two movies for Disney, Thor and Cinderella (neither particularly good themselves). Artemis Fowl is notably lacking in that department that’s often a reliable strength of its director, even in his poorer films.
Branagh was at one point considered to direct the third Harry Potter movie, and after Artemis Fowl I shudder to imagine what that would have been (especially considering it means we would have been robbed of Alfonso Cuaróns’ unquestionable high point of that series). But then, Branagh doesn’t seem entirely in control here, the finished film having almost nothing of his usual mark. It’s a journeyman movie for him, as though Disney let him go off and make his meditative Shakespeare love letter All is True on condition he come back and churn out this dreck for them.
And for everything that’s wrong with this movie, I haven’t touched on perhaps its’ greatest crime. I try not to be one to put much stock in adaptation loyalty to be any measure of quality in a movie. Films, as their own art form, don’t owe audiences an accurate translation of any source material. That said, I understand the vast differences between this movie and its book amount to more than mere artistic choice or necessary medium alteration; that it seemingly goes out of its way to insult the book and the elements that actually made it stand out from every other early 2000s childrens’ fantasy series. And that is less forgivable. Artemis Fowl was a book that won fans over for its daring and complexity within a market saturated with Potter wannabes. The movie bearing that name is indistinguishable from any other derivative youth fantasy. I don’t have to be a fan to know Artemis Fowl deserved better.

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