Review: Artemis Fowl

i'M a cRiMiNaL MaStErMiNd

Young prodigy Artemis (Ferdia Shaw) has always grown up with stories about fairies and trolls from his father. (Colin Farrell) Now when he is kidnapped, he finds that these things are real and that his father may have assisted in stealing something very valuable from them. He kidnaps a fairy police officer, Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) and along with a troll (Josh Gad) and his bodyguard/butler Dom (Nonso Anozie) they must fend off more fairy troupe when they descend on Fowl Manor.

While watching this with my son, he asked if I could make popcorn. I told him to pause it, after all, we had just started it, and as I was walking away he was like "Wow, we only have 35 more minutes of this movie left." ..... how did a hour of this fly by with NOTHING happening? And therein lies one of the major problems with Artemis Fowl. It's not really a movie, it's a set up.

My expectations for this were set at "Maybe I won't think it's as bad as everyone else does because I didn't read the books" but unfortunately this fails at so many different things it's impossible to look past. The CGI is not what I would expect from a Disney film that a 150 million budget. The actors don't seem to know how to react to CGI either. There's so many awkward moments. Not just with the acting, but with the script too. Was the best way to create conflict really to have Holly get stuck in a chandelier? If Dom just got a large troll dropped on him, how did these two 12 year olds carry him into another room and put him in a seated position for their big dramatic moment? Also what was the point of Dom's niece Juliet? (Tamara Smart) I think the film forgot about her several times. 

Colin Farrell and Nonso Anozie are the only two actors that are doing a decent job, but they don't get a lot of screen time. Judi Dench and her Batman voice is fun to watch in a campy way, but the trio of mains in Shaw, McDonnell and Josh Gad, who is also the narrator leave much to be desired. I feel like McDonnell is probably a good actress most of the time, but Holly just got the short end (no pun intended) of the stick content wise. This is Shaw's first movie so I can forgive him for being kind of awful. Josh Gad on the other hand could barely contain himself enough to keep a consistent accent. It's like watching Olaf literally spring out of him a few different times.

They clearly wanted to use this movie to set up the Fowl universe, but instead they've all but guaranteed we'll never see another one of these. Thankfully this is on Disney+ and no one had to waste their theater money on it.

Recommended: No

Grade: D

Memorable Quote: "Top of the morning!" - Commander Root (Judi Dench)