Artemis Fowl review by Bobby Blakey
The Artemis Fowl book series from author Eoin Colfer has been in development for years. Finally director Kenneth Branagh teamed up with Disney to get the film made at last with a great cast including Ferdia Shaw, Lara McDonnell, Josh Gad, Tamara Smart, Nonso Anozie, Josh McGuire, Nikesh Patel, Adrian Scarborough, Miranda Raison, Colin Farrell and Judi Dench. Sadly the film lost its theatrical release due to the current pandemic, but has now made its premiere exclusively on Disney +, but does it offer up the fun and magic of the book series or will it fail to capture the imagination of audiences?
Artemis Fowl follows follows the journey of 12-year-old genius Artemis Fowl, a descendant of a long line of criminal masterminds, as he seeks to find his father who has mysteriously disappeared. With the help of his loyal protector Butler, Artemis sets out to find him, and in doing so uncovers an ancient, underground civilization—the amazingly advanced world of fairies. Deducing that his father’s disappearance is somehow connected to the secretive, reclusive fairy world, cunning Artemis concocts a dangerous plan—so dangerous that he ultimately finds himself in a perilous war of wits with the all-powerful fairies.
I have been seeing so many negative reviews going in, but knowing nothing about the source material I tried to keep an open mind. I must say outside of a few issues I thought it was a pretty fun movie. It kind of felt like a cross between Harry Potter and Spy Kids with its own flare of magic. The cast are all good in their roles with me only disappointed that Colin Farrell is barely in it, but that is more due to me being a fan than anything else. This film creates a great fantasy universe grounded in our real world with some fun characters and action.
Where the film struggled for me was plot holes. The story makes sense, but there are a couple of moments whether it be editing or just assumed the audience already knew where it was going. I had a blink and missed it moment where it felt like something was missing, which makes more sense at the end of the film, but should have been edited in a different way. This makes for a couple of times where the story seems to skip or something
that should make it drive forward but instead just left with confusion. Thankfully it always found its way back on track to end with something pretty fun.
In the end it’s far from a perfect film, but one that I wish had been the first of future films. Sadly I doubt with it being dropped to Disney + that we will get more entries but only time will tell. If you are a fan of the series I know there are changes, but have read that Colfer approved them so should be something to be willing to accept I guess. The film might have been a bit ambitious to combine the first book with elements of the second leaving it open for future installments, but in the end I had a good time with it and hope this isn’t the end of the adventure.