There are plenty of cute, if forgettable, children’s fantasy films that offer just enough intrigue, action, and oddness to keep the entire family occupied for about two hours. Sometimes those films even get relegated to family film pile that you can trot out semi-frequently for everyone’s enjoyment. Sometimes those films even make it into a beloved category of Family Staple, the sort of movie you watch together on holidays and reminisce over.
And then there are children’s fantasy films like Artemis Fowl.
[Some spoilers for Artemis Fowl.]
Artemis Fowl was among the first casualties in pandemic theatrical release schedule, shifting from its in-theater premiere date to a much quieter debut on Disney+. It made sense insofar as the film had failed to garner the sort of buzz Disney was undoubtedly hoping for, and it was time to get the movie off the company plate, as it were. Still, fans of the book series from the early aughts were undoubtedly hoping for something that would stand up to Eoin Colfer’s story of the tween criminal mastermind.
They are bound to be disappointed however, because while Artemis Fowl, Jr. (Ferdia Shaw) does say those exact words—“I’m a criminal mastermind”—at the end of the film, there is nothing in the movie that explains why Artemis might think that or why the audience should believe him. The most we see the kid accomplish is reading a bunch of books and directing a friend or two to aid in his quest to recover his father (Colin Farrell) from an angry fairy. The kid is a genius, which we’re shown at the start of the film—actually that’s a lie, what we’re shown is the kid’s impressive surfing skills for some reason(?), and then eventually his distaste for his school’s staff—but that doesn’t translate to being a criminal mastermind of any sort. Even his dad’s label as another criminal mastermind doesn’t make sense because while his father is a thief, he’s mostly stealing things to protect the planet.
You can be a hero who people label a thief (you know, Robin Hood’s whole M.O.), or you can be a criminal mastermind. Within the books, Fowl definitely started as the former before morphing over time into a sort of antihero. But part of what made the series compelling was the fact that Artemis was learning human interaction from others, slowly becoming more attuned and empathetic via his time spent with fairies and other magical beings. None of this made the leap onto the screen, so the story has lost everything that made it different, and it’s hard to say why that occurred. Was Disney scared of having an unlikable protagonist? Were they worried that parents would complain that the character was a “poor influence” on impressionable minds? Did they assume they were only getting one film out of this, despite setting up the sequel, and simply wash their hands of the whole affair? Whatever the reason, it prevents the story from taking flight before it ever leaves the ground.
Kenneth Branagh directed this film, and it’s strange because he’s proven competent in this arena—Thor may not be many fans’ favorite Marvel film, but you can follow the action, the plot, and the characters, and the CGI doesn’t distract from the overall story. This is not true of Artemis Fowl, but perhaps we can’t blame Branagh given the script he had to work with. Written by Conor McPherson (The Eclipse, The Actors) and Hamish McColl (Mr. Bean’s Holiday, Johnny English Reborn), the film’s screenplay spends half its time explaining away a story that the audience should be shown. Most of the lines are downright tedious and overwrought on top of it. There’s a groan a minute and everything in spelled out in excruciating detail.
What’s worse is that the film seems to want points for being more diverse than the books perhaps were, but it doesn’t handle that diversity well. For a start, the Fowl family employs a black man named Domovoi Butler (Nonso Anozie) as a butler and bodyguard. Dom spends the entire movie doing whatever Artemis asks of him, and eventually brings his niece Juliet (Tamara Smart) over to help aid in the search for Fowl, Sr. While Juliet is clearly another very smart kid, her role in the plot is literally relegated to bringing food to other characters—her first major action in the plot is making and delivering a sandwich to Artemis, citing his need to keep his strength up in order to keep looking for his father.
The fact that no one considered for a moment that this was generally a bad look for the film is further exacerbated when Dom is injured protecting Artemis and receives what should be a fatal wound. On the one hand, the movie happily doesn’t off poor Domovoi for the sake of Artemis Fowl’s character development, but while he’s ostensibly dying, Artemis tell Juliet to go get help while he sits there with her uncle. Had Dom died, Artemis would have been there for his final moments, his final words, while his niece presumably called for help. This can’t be counted as surprising because according to the story and how Juliet is placed within the narrative, that is all she and her uncle are: the help. Again, no one seems to have considered that this was a flaw in the story.
Alongside all of these problems, we have the character responsible for the frame narration of the whole film, a dwarf named Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad). Mulch is introduced to the audience at the very start of the film, providing testimony to some sort of random police force who are never named or explained. When we meet him in the fairy realm, he is immediately made fun of by other dwarfs—all played by little people—for being too tall to be a dwarf, and Mulch angrily informs them that he has gigantism, making him human-sized. If you’ve ever read the books, you know that Mulch on the page doesn’t have this particular condition. This suggests that the film deliberately altered Mulch’s character to have an “average”-sized actor portray him.
This is Hollywood ableism, plain and simple. Rather than casting a little person to portray Mulch—as they did with the other dwarf roles in the film—it appears Disney wanted a more recognizable name in the part. The problem, of course, is that marginalized actors have trouble establishing themselves as a “recognizable name” because roles are not typically cultivated for them, and it’s disappointing that Disney altered the character to fit a more conventional actor. To make matters worse, Mulch actually begs the fairies to use their magic to make him a “normal-sized” dwarf. His story uses the language and narrative beats typical of stories dealing with ableism, prejudice, and belonging in order to make the film seem empathetic and elevated, when the behind-the-scenes practices actively denied a high-profile role to an actor who undoubtedly could have used it. So in addition to being a very vague and mealy sojourn, it’s also a cynical one.
Add in a bunch of very vague Irish set dressing (the well-known “Irish Blessing” is featured prominently throughout the film, almost as though they expect audiences to have never heard it before), fairy uniforms that look as though they were pinched wholesale from The Santa Clause, and Dame Judi Dench expending far too much effort to collect a paycheck (she gives her all, but she doesn’t need to and it’s depressing), and you just about have all the elements needed to make this movie. The score keeps trying to convince you that the events you’re witnessing are something truly epic, but composer Patrick Doyle cannot save them. Oh, and for some reason, the opening credits are done in the same font as the cover of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Maybe they were hoping viewers would make the connection somehow in their minds? But it’s hard to imagine two stories being less alike, unless a big screen adaptation of Jonathan Strange gives the Raven King a jetpack.
All of these things add up to make Artemis Fowl one of the laziest efforts on children’s fantasy that audiences have ever seen. Just skip it and watch Labyrinth, Willow, Ladyhawke, or A Wrinkle in Time. You’ll have a better evening in.
Emmet Asher-Perrin doesn’t often say this, but they would like those 95 minutes of their life back. You can bug them on Twitter, and read more of their work here and elsewhere.
I don’t know why I had my hopes up for it…The huge delay in release was a warning sign…then Disney just plopping it onto Disney + instead of holding on to it for a theatrical release like they are Black Widow and Mulan was another flashing red light. I guess I was expecting a whimsical romp and what I got was Spy Kids without the charm.
And how in the world does anybody make Judy Dench look like an amateur community theater actor???
It’s odd- I would have thought “Prepubescent Bond villain vs. high-tech fairies was a solid and succinct enough premise that it at least would have survived the adaptation process relatively unscathed even if things like Holly’s position as first female LEP officer, or the detailed plot and counterplot didn’t.
Butler in the books (I don’t recall that his ethnicity was ever specified- I sort of assumed Eastern European based on his name, but while the Domovoi is a sort of househould spirit/fairy in Slavic mythology, I’m far from certain it’s something Eastern European parents are likely to name their child) I do recall having fairly thoroughly subsumed his own goals to those of Artemis, but he did call him out on at least one occasion towards the end of the first book. That sort of employer/employee relationship always weirds me out a little, but adding race to the equation makes it stand out substantially more.
“CGI candy-coated waste of time” is a great phrase, which to me already describes a vast swath of modern cinema. (Thor: Ragnarok is a perfect example, in my opinion, although I know it’s beloved by many).
Yeah, let’s pretend A Wrinkle in Time isn’t exactly this sort of charmless, condescending mess
They delayed it but they delayed it for May, which is normally a big movie month. I had hopes.
Butler being black didn’t throw me when I saw the early adds because I’d always pictured Artemis as a dark-haired Bruno the Kid with Butler as Jarlesburg. Besides, Butler (as written) is cool, sort of a combined Rambo and James Bond. How could anyone turn that into a demeaning role? More importantly, why would anyone turn it into a demeaning role?
Here’s adding another to my list of books-I-loved-but-Hollywood-destroyed.
I’ve read elsewhere that the original development had nothing to do with the books beyond the name, and it would have been a massive parody of sorts that included LORD OF THE RINGS characters and other fantasy franchises. At least this film wasn’t that bad even if it’s getting horrible reviews.
The novel series, as is, would have made a good movie franchise. A bunch of great characters, a good plot, and strong visuals. Why can’t studios figure this out? They did the same thing with Percy Jackson series. I wonder what a disaster the first Harry Potter film would have been if JKR had such a strong presence in the creation.
Another reviewer was talking about the cheap CGI in parts of the film like they had run out of budget, and I wonder if Mulch’s size was more about not having to resize the actor to save money than anything else.
OK; clueless white guy here.
I really need Disney to explain how “diversity” can be instantiated by using people of color as domestic help. Isn’t this kind of enforcing the stereotype that PoC in an action/adventure movie, especially one aimed at children, can only be there to serve the inevitably white hero (not heroine)? Also, if they wanted to get a well-known actor to play a dwarf, who is this Josh Gad person?
@2 Butler is described as “Eurasian”, if that helps. Although I’m not sure his ethnicity is ever a plot point, so I have no problem with them changing it. But the character assassination they did was tragic. Although everyone got that, I suppose, to some degree.
Another easy example of whitewashing was Holly – she’s described in the books as having nut brown skin, yet was replaced by a white actress.
The only saving grace for me was that one scene where Holly asked for her gun back, Butler went to get it, then Mulch produced it with a shifty look. I’d give it a 1/10 instead of a zero. And it has inspired me to re-read the books, so there’s that.
I managed to miss most of it when my 8 year old kids watched it over the weekend. They liked it/it kept their attention.
@8 That was the one good thing I had to say, it made me want to reread the books (I started and finished book one today, that was good ^^).
The Seeker (The Dark is Rising) would like a word.
@7 The point as mentioned in the review is that casting non-white actors in subservient roles doesn’t give positive points for diversity. They did an awful job on Butler, not by making him black, but by taking away the aspects of his and Juliet’s characters that made them interesting and effective, while relegating them to supporting an inexplicably-heroic Artemis. Dom should be an expert strategist and James Bond expy. Juliet should be a few years older than Artemis and an absolute bruiser, not a twelve-year-old genius whose only contribution to the plot is giving Arty a sandwich. Also, a brown-skinned Holly should be the hero here, not Artemis.
For that matter, writing Angeline Fowl out of the movie (and potentially the series, though I wouldn’t be so optimistic) was nonsensical, since it left the role she played to be fulfilled by a man. She’s the only morality chain Artemis has in the novel, and his motive is to heal her of her debilitating mental illness… which could have been easily adapted to something less problematic for the film.
I think your last point was meant to be a sarcastic jab at an actor you don’t care for, but just in case it wasn’t: Josh Gad *is* a pretty well-known actor. Aside from high-profile Broadway roles, Gad played Olaf in Frozen and its sequel, and was in Murder on the Orient Express, Pixels, and Beauty and the Beast. Not all of those were good movies, but that’s not the point. If even a single character Gad played is a household name that anybody can be reasonably to identify by name, then he’s well-known. And if you can’t identify Olaf, the snowman who likes warm hugs, then you’ve been living under a rock for over half a decade.
@ 12/Jarnunvosk – you seem to have just expanded on Swampyankee’s point, not answered him.
When even a clueless white guy can see how the choices made are problematic, how did Disney think that they were good ideas?
I’m really confused why they didn’t make him a criminal. Just take a look at Peter Rabbit. The books are bad enough, but the recent tv series and film flip Peter and Benjamin Bunnies personalities, and have Peter be an unrepentant repeat offender, taking joy in the thrill of his criminal activities.
So why change Fowl?
@12,
I’ve not been under a rock; I’ve not been to a movie for over a decade, as I aged out of Hollywood’s main target demographic a couple of decades back. This is one of the reasons I never get involved in the games where people try to cast movies.
I’m Italian-American, as is my wife, so I notice the treatment of Italian-Americans on TV and in the movies. It’s rare for an Italian-American to be portrayed as anything other than a buffoon (Who’s the Boss), or a thug (Sopranos, The Godfather, Boardwalk Empire, ….). It’s worse for people whose dominant ancestry isn’t from Europe, and it’s all part and parcel of a culture of racism and white — specifically Northern European — supremacy, one which has become very deeply embedded in US culture.
I’m clueless in that I’ve got no understanding of the logic behind the casting and, perhaps more importantly, behind the revisions to the book presented in the movie. All of them seem to be “improvements” only in reducing the importance and competence of all except the protagonist and even eviscerating his character.
Oh, this is disappointing. I read several of these books in…either high school or college (I was a little aged out of their target demographic, but I enjoyed things like Harry Potter or a Series of Unfortunate Events so I’m willing to give ‘YA lit’ a try) and while they weren’t my favorites, I did enjoy them and was curious about how a movie might turn out.
It’s a shame they seemed to jettison some of the more unique (and distinguishing) aspects of Artemis’s character and I agree that handwaving a reason to cast an average sized actor into a role that could have been a great vehicle for a little person is disappointing. Although now that I type this it’s making me wonder why I never thought about this in LotR/the Hobbit (although they at least kept the characters small). And yeah, the ‘black servant’ thing is not the greatest optics at all (it’s been long enough that I don’t remember the actual dynamic between Artemis and Dom).
#16 good point on the Artemis character. The books themselves aren’t exactly groundbreaking in terms of story and imagination. The one point it had going for it was Artemis’ super genius villainous ways. They tried to include that in the movie at the beginning when he tells the head master that he respects his peers like Albert Einstein…but really, that just made him seem like a smug little prick, not a super genius villain…and they completely dropped it after that scene anyway.
Oh, and for some reason, the opening credits are done in the same font as the cover of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Maybe they were hoping viewers would make the connection somehow in their minds?
I rather doubt that. The typeface in question is Caslon Antique, which is a moderately popular choice for both book covers and movie credits. Among the movies that have used it: The Professionals (1966); The Hunting Party (1971); Jeremiah Johnson (1972); The White Buffalo (1977); Possession (1981); Ghost Story (1982); Revolution (1985); Pirates (1986); Empire of the Sun (1987); Night of the Living Dead (1990 remake); The Descendants (2011); and Les Miserables (2013). The Wiki page notes that it was used for the 1980s TV reboot of The Twilight Zone, and also for the covers of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books.
It was intended to have a slightly old-timey look, suggesting the often worn and pitted (due to overuse) type of 18th Century printing. So it’s appropriate when you want to suggest something vaguely 18th or 19th Century, and thus makes sense for the early 19th Century setting of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. This works for some of the movies as well (a number of 18th and 19th Century settings), though titles like Empire of the Sun, Night of the Living Dead, and The Descendants demonstrate that people are happy to use it for more modern things.
@8 On the face of it, someone of Black African descent is a member of one of the few ethnic groups that could not be classed as “Eurasian”. So whatever Eoin Colfer had in mind, we can be pretty sure the film did not match it. Perhaps someone thought that “Eurasian” meant “not white”.
@@@@@ 19
“Eurasian” when applied to people has traditionally meant “mixed European and Asian ancestry” (originally applied in British India to Anglo-Indians), not “anyone from Europe or Asia”.
For what it’s worth, part of the casting decision seems to have been a case of “director likes to cast favorite actors in his films”; the actor (Nonso Anozie) said in an interview
(He and the interviewer both say that Branagh had him in mind from the start of the casting process. Elsewhere he mentions bonding with the actor playing Artemis Fowl, since the latter plays Dungeons & Dragons and Anozie played it as a kid, which is kind of cool.)
When I hear “Eurasian” my mind always goes to Kristin Kreuk. I remember having a big crush on her back in her Smallville days and I couldn’t put a finger on her race. I looked up her bio and found that she was a mix of Chinese and Dutch ancestry. So whenever I hear someone referred to as Eurasian, that’s who I think of.
In the book Artemis is playing for money. In the movie he aims to get his father back. As soon as you make that change, it makes more sense for Artemis to bargain with the fairies as allies rather than do this elaborate and unnecessary plot. And it also sets up the expectation that Artemis will launch a rescue mission. Instead, a fairy recites a magic spell and poof, dad rescued? Even more silly. I was left with a “that’s your whole story?” feeling.
on preview: this movie is as late to the party as the Angry Birds movie was…
I’m sorry to hear the movie is bad – I was so looking forward to it. I also want to re-read the series now. But if I can risk a little hatred from the bibliophiles… if you have already read the books, you really should listen to them. Narrator Nathaniel Parker is brilliant and extremely entertaining.