Artemis Fowl – Movie Review

So about two weeks ago I mentioned in ‘From Book To Film’ that I was waiting for a film adaptation of one of my favourite books to arrive and, boy, did it arrive and, boy, was it a disappointment. The film and book in question was Artemis Fowl. Originally written by the exceedingly witty Eoin Colfer and published in 2001, the book and the sequels that followed chronicled Artemis’ adventures (would misadventures be more accurate?) involving “The People,” a race of subterranean, highly technologically advanced magical beings. Elves, pixies, dwarves, centaurs; you name it these books had it. A kleptomaniac dwarf that ate soil and fired it out his rear end at breakneck speeds? Check. A stubborn Lower Elements Police captain held for a ransom of fairy gold? Check. A child genius and criminal mastermind all rolled into one character? Check. A ticking time bomb waiting to go off that could kill everyone? That’s a big ole yup. That is not what we got in the movie. Consider this your spoiler warning and buckle in, it’s going to get ugly…

Now, I refuse to blame any of the actors involved for the very loose adaptation of the book that became the film that we got. In fact, I quite liked Ferdia Shaw as Artemis. He fits the description of Artemis exceptionally, even down to the blue eyes, and has the right attitude at the beginning of the film in the psychologist office to be an excellent Artemis but I would love to see him be the real Artemis, not the one the script supplied for him. I feel like Ferdia could easily have captured the cunning, devious mind of Artemis Fowl the Second who in the first novel was very much the villain. Lara definitely is capable of showing Holly’s stubborn streak and I would love to see her really get the chance to wing it as Captain Short. However, that is nothing like what Disney decided to give us. What Disney gave us was in fact an attempt to introduce Opal Koboi, who doesn’t make her first appearance until the second book and who is a notorious egotistical megalomaniac with a vendetta against Foaly. Personally, I feel that if Opal ever got her hands on Artemis Fowl Senior she’d kill him probably just for the hell of it. This film was trying far too hard to do too much and make Artemis more sympathetic. That’s the thing: Artemis was not sympathetic in the first book. He went to all the effort of finding the People’s Book and translating it by himself.

It felt to me that whoever wrote this script realised about halfway through that Artemis was the villain and said “oh goodness gracious we can’t have that in a Disney film.” And here is where the crux of the issue lies. It felt to me like the script writers didn’t know our Artemis at all. Or Our Holly. Or our Butler (Not Domovoi and definitely, and I repeat DEFINITELY, NOT Dom). They put our boy genius Artemis on a surfboard and a hoverboard and in jeans! And, personally, I find the jeans most offensive. I prefer Artemis in a well tailored suit and I believe he would prefer it too. Also I don’t see a child genius naming a cloned sheep Bruce… Castor, Pollux or Gemini perhaps because it would be a smart inside joke. For crying out loud, Disney made our eventual antihero in the novels a character that was dragged along by the plot rather than the instigator of some of the most devious schemes known to man or fairy.

Now, this whole plot revolving around the disappearance of Artemis Fowl Senior…First and foremost, Colin Farrell was actually a good choice for Artemis Fowl Senior but I never thought of Artemis Fowl Senior as a caring father before Holly Short’s appearance in Artemis the Second’s life. I feel like if having the father in the story was necessary perhaps we could have understood where Artemis got his criminal tendencies. Artemis Senior was the one who told Artemis that, while all other things’ values rose and fell, gold remained constant. In the film, they somehow made Artemis Senior a good guy; stealing things yes but for a good purpose. The Fowl family motto is ‘Aurum potestas est’ or Gold is power not ‘do the right thing’ or ‘fairies are our friends’. Fowls are villains, it’s in their blood. Also killing off Angeline Fowl and removing the threat of the bio bomb within the time stop was unnecessary and, quite frankly, this incident would have given the film some sort of much needed tension which it sorely lacked.

To me, this film is very much a separate entity from the book and does not represent the characters that readers have come to know and love. It was a big disappointment and I, for one, am very much looking forward to it being made into a TV show in a few years time with more character development (which we got slim to none of in the film) with a more faithful to the novel storyline. So that means that Holly Short does not need to try to redeem her father’s name because Holly Short is defined by her abilities as a captain and her general tendency for taking orders directly from her Commander as general suggestions. And on the topic of L.E.P Commanders with noxious cigars and probable extremely high blood pressure, what self-respecting Commander of the L.E.P would ever say top o’ the morning?…

Disney, I don’t know what you created but it was not Artemis Fowl. This film was inspired by the story of Artemis Fowl as told to your script writers by some one who had a general grasp of the plot but was missing the finer plot point details and who embellished the story for the hell of it in places. Any fan of the book could have done a far better job with the budget, cast and crew that Disney had for this film. This is not a film that fans of the books should watch. This is a disappointment.