Social Icons

Artemis Fowl (2020)


Artemis Fowl (2020)


2/10


Starring
Ferdia Shaw
Lara McDonnell
Josh Gad
Tamara Smart
Nonso Anozie
Colin Farrell
Judi Dench


Directed by Kenneth Branagh


The person who signed off on this script to be made into a movie should receive a query.

This movie is not entertaining, and for a film about a secret family protecting the world from things we can only imagine, I expected gadgets. All through the movie, I kept expecting to see Artemis suit up and use gadget-like things, but nothing like that happened—not even a single cool human gadget was present.

The whole fairy gadget stuff was reduced to two things: one that pauses time and a gun. As for the Aculos, I don’t know where to classify that. When you watch the movie, you’ll understand.

The movie is an hour and thirty minutes long, and I spent the first hour growing to dislike Artemis. The movie seems meant to spark a franchise from the way it was set up, but how can you make a franchise from a film that only sparks annoyance? Not only was the character of Artemis annoying, but he was also totally unrealistic.

The first hour was spent giving the movie some depth. That might have been worthwhile for future installments, if not for the fact that the whole depth-building part was so boring I had to pause the movie for an hour-long nap. The movie is based on a book titled Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, published in 2001.

I learn that Artemis (a twelve-year-old) is a loner, and the only person he cares for and respects is his father. His father, on the other hand, is always on some secret mission and is hardly around. His father teaches him about fairies, trolls, goblins, and dwarves from the magic world. We, the viewers, get to learn about a world of magic beneath our feet.

When Artemis Fowl Sr. goes missing, Artemis Fowl Jr. gets a call instructing him to locate the Aculos and bring it to the person who holds his father captive. Artemis, with the help of his father’s butler Dom and his niece Juliet, comes up with a plan to catch a fairy and ransom it for the Aculos to free his father.

They catch a fairy named Short, and the others come to free her. This is when things start to happen, though it’s funny that the explanation above takes an entire hour to unfold. When the action and somewhat of a fight happen in the Fowl Manor, the story still didn’t pick up.

This is a movie that’s supposed to capture the attention of both children and adults, and yet the first hour is uneventful, with the main character being unappealing. Then, when the action finally takes place, get ready for the most anticlimactic thing you can find on TV. The whole buildup and my entire investment of time ended in a flash—a literal flash.

Something weird about this movie also—here, I blame the director. It felt like there were too many things happening for us to see everyone in the movie actually do something. Of all the things happening, none were interesting enough to matter.

We have the Juliet character, who was introduced but hardly used in the movie. Dom was hardly useful, and even Artemis didn’t have enough screen time to change the impression of him being an annoying young child.

Disney spent $125 million to produce this movie, and unless Disney has more money to waste, this will likely be the last we see of Artemis Fowl. You can catch it on Disney+ if you’re in need of a good nap.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Disclaimer

All images featured on this site are the property of their respective copyright owners. They are used solely for illustrative and commentary purposes under fair use principles. This site is a personal blog, unaffiliated with or endorsed by any copyright holders. If you are the copyright owner of an image featured here and wish to have it removed, please contact me directly, and I will address your request promptly.