Artemis Fowl

Watching Artemis Fowl is like listening to someone read a complicated instruction manual at a very quick pace, without pausing to allow for questions or reflection. I get that they had to cram a lot of story into one 90-minute movie, but it just doesn't make any sense. Artemis is unlikeable, Mulch Diggums is annoying, I felt embarrassed for Dame Judi Dench, and the rest of the cast is forgettable. If you're interested in this story, skip the movie and read the books.

This movie seems like it was written by someone who read the Wikipedia for this book series but never actually picked up the books. When making a movie based on a book, there are liberties that have to be taken because some things can't translate from the book and some effects (like the size of the fairies) are a hard to produce without costly CGI. However this movie doesn't seem to care about using CGI, and even uses it effectively but uses it in all the wrong places. The biggest issue with this movie is not the complete changing of story line but the betrayal of every single character's base traits for what appears to be no real reason. If you never read the books, this movie is passable, but if you're a fan of the series, prepared to see a torpedoing of all your beloved characters.

Truly an awful film. Scraps literally all the charm and myth of the book and misses every mark that would be necessary for even a decent film. The tone is confused, the scene direction is 10/10 for cringe. All those years of Shakespearean study and practice was a waste of time Kennith? Clearly. Packed with all the muddled and addled virtue signalling nonsense that you could ever need. It not only defuses any sincerity about the characters but also manages to destroy any possible tension. We seem to be in a place in film making where it is taboo and forbidden for anyone to represent negative qualities of any kind. Everyone is good and nice to each other except for characters hidden in cloaks or the colonial British man.

Josh Gads narration is not only entirely unnecessary but delivered like a high school students first assessment project.

Holly is wrecked. Root is wrecked. Foaley is nothing. Mulch is intolerable. Butler is wrecked. Juliet is nothing.

0 tension. 0 nuance. 0 technique.

It may be the worst adaption of a book I've ever seen. Definitely at least in the top 5.

If Disney put half the effort into the movie as they did into making a trailer and promotion, Artemis Fowl might have been only horrible instead of nauseatingly unwatchable. Thanks to the other 1 star reviews I will be reading the books so I can understand exactly how badly they dropped the ball. My kids and I haven't been this disappointed since the Last Airbender movie M. Night butchered.

Fans of the books will be immensely disappointed as this movie changes everything, and not in a good way (think a wrinkle in time, percy jackson, or mortal engines). If you're going to rewrite the plot, it should at least be entertaining and make sense.

However, not only is this a bad adaptation, it is also a bad movie in general. You're not going to attract any new fans by pumping 90% of your budget into CGI, and then glossing over your characters and screenplay. Absolutely no one is going to say "I liked this movie, now let me check out the books."

It used to mean something when you saw the disney castle at the beginning of a movie. Now it just means the movie you are about to see is going to be a disaster.