Thus, as a big fan, I had always been extremely excited for an Artemis Fowl film adaptation; I felt it was long overdue that it had one. However, the middling trailer and the fact that its release date was constantly being pushed forward gave me cause for worry. I became all but certain that it was going to suck – or, at least, transformed into something generic.
Unfortunately, I was right with my misgivings. Disney botched it up.
If this movie has merits of entertainment value, I was so enraged to notice them. It was clear that the filmmakers wanted to make it as “kid-friendly” – i.e. sanitized and derivative – as it could possibly be so that it could be accessible and inoffensive to as many audiences (i.e. people that will pay to watch it) as possible, and thus, many things were tweaked to serve that purpose. The outcome is an atrociously dumbed down, wishy-washy movie adaptation that feels more of a product rather than an earnest movie adaptation. The Artemis Fowl books are so excellently imaginative, smart, witty, and absorbing, that seeing a movie of it that’s shockingly diluted and run-of-the-mill was genuinely nauseating for me.
The plot – which took inspiration from events and elements from the first two books – is simultaneously lazy, asinine, unsophisticated, and messy. And there are several creative and narrative decisions that I was frustrated with. I don’t like that Artemis Fowl Sr. (played by Colin Farrell) was set up for a bigger role in this potential movie series, and I was baffled by the choice of making Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) and Julius Root’s (Judi Dench) voices off-puttingly growly (though there’s one self-aware joke that came out of this that made me chuckle). I have many other complaints, but it’s going to be spoiler-y and bothersome to list them all here.
But my biggest gripe is probably the portrayal of the eponymous character.
Artemis Fowl II is one of my most favorite fictional characters ever, mainly because of the charm that he’s a 12-year-old criminal mastermind. He’s a formidable, calculating strategist who can thoroughly simulate his schemes in his head with terrifying efficiency and accuracy. He’s usually the smartest man – er, boy – in the room, and can never be outsmarted as he’s at least ten steps ahead of everybody. Even when it seems like he’s outsmarted, it’s eventually revealed that this development is simply playing out according to his plan all along. And in the rare cases that he does get beaten, he bounces back with a vengeance – he won’t be beaten twice.
His depiction in the movie isn’t close to being as striking and amazing as that. Yes, the movie establishes that he’s a prodigy, and it keeps telling the audience (through Mulch Diggums’ narration) that he’s a fearsome mastermind. But the movie doesn’t show us this fact in a convincing, satisfying manner. The movie version of Artemis Fowl II isn’t remarkable, charismatic, and imposing at all.
Another interesting thing about the original Artemis Fowl II is that he was a legit criminal mastermind – emphasis on the word “criminal.” Author Eoin Colfer conceptualized him as a “12-year-old James Bond villain.” Cold, scheming, and arrogant, he actually functions mostly as an antagonist in the first book. But over the course of the series, he changes for the better as his friendship with Holly Short and the People develops. This gives him a meaningful character arc, and makes him a complex character.
On the other hand, the movie makes it a point to give him and the Fowl family a more benevolent origin story from the get go. Sure, he eventually calls himself a “criminal mastermind”, but he’s not really one by principle. This is just one of the many examples where the movie sanitizes the property, and thus, ruins its appeal and depth.
So, yeah, if it isn’t clear by now, I hate this movie. It really pains me that Harry Potter got an excellent movie franchise but the more interesting Artemis Fowl didn’t.
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