If Artemis Fowl had been released in cinemas, as originally intended, I doubt I would have rushed to see it. Live-Action Disney doesn’t get me in the same way their Animation does, especially after abominations like A Wrinkle in Time from a few years ago, and the much-maligned The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, even though I did enjoy that for what it was. The fact that Artemis Fowl is based on a book series does give me hope for a solid structure and good characterisations, but YouTube reviews for this movie have been hard to avoid, and if their thumbnails are anything to go by, then I’m in for a wacky time.
Artemis Fowl sees a rich Irish relic hunter, Artemis Fowl Snr. (Colin Farrell), kidnapped by a mystical figure named Opal, leaving his son, Artemis Fowl Jr. (Ferdia Shaw), to find the Aculos, a powerfully magical object, for ransom in exchange for his father’s safety. The Fowl family butler, Dom Butler (Nonso Anozie) opens Artemis’ eyes to the very real world of magical creatures, including fairies, goblins, trolls and dwarfs, who live in secret at the Earth’s core. As young Artemis Fowl devises a plan to get his father back, a rookie fairy soldier, Officer Holly Short (Lara McDonnell), flies into the story looking for the Aculos as well, in the hopes of clearing her father’s name, who is accused of misplacing the Aculos, and is seen as a traitor. Officer Short brings the fairy army on her tail, led by Commander Julius Root (Judi Dench).
I don’t envy these fantasy movies; there’s often so much lore to explore, set up and accept before any sense of adventure can even get underway. Even with a careful director like Kenneth Branagh, who is responsible for such competent movies as Thor and Murder on the Orient Express, I’m sure you can never be certain if you have the next Fifth Element on your hands, or something forgettable, like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. There’s a lot of clunky setup to look past in the first act of Artemis Fowl but I’ve got to admit, I was steadily invested in the stakes of the story once the action finally kicked in; essentially, a human, a bodyguard, a fairy and a dwarf all come together to pull off an impossible mission.
Judy Dench seems to be having fun in the twilight of her career – dressing as an old cat at the end of last year, in a movie that shall not be named, and now appearing as a Fairy Commander. Her character, Commander Root, is a lot more grounded that her introduction and green fairy suit would suggest, bringing a gravelly gravitas similar to that of James Bond’s M. The commander fairy would have a bit to chat about with Rodney Dangerfield though, I reckon – no respect! Her surrounding team sound off some exposition to her commands, that just comes across as doubting backchat. Reign it in fairy soldiers, the Dame has it down! I also came to respect what Lara McDonnell was bringing to the table as Officer Short; she’s cute and competent in playing a young, yet military trained, fairy soldier. Unlike Shaw, who is playing a kid in Artemis Fowl, McDonnell is playing a mature 84-year-old in a position of responsibility. I think she was great, and can’t wait to see more of her in coming years.
But I think the make-or-break character is going to be dwarf Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad). I must confess, I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Gad, unless in recent silly roles like Olaf or Teddy McGiggle in Little Monsters. I think Gad gets some terrific material here and was the highlight of the movie for me. Every time he was not on screen after getting out of jail it’s like “where did Mulch Diggums go? Is Diggums coming back?” By my estimation, Diggums gets to reinvent the mythos around what it means to be a dwarf, holding the ability to pick locks with his beard, extend his jaw to munch out a tunnel in seconds, and shoot the dirt out of his butt – think back to those pathetic seven dwarfs in Snow White using their mouths for singing and digging for diamonds with picks. I never saw Bashful shooting dirt out of his butt, getting his work done in half the time and going home to cook his own damn dinner; lame! Gad’s gigantic dwarf combines the best parts of Hagrid and Bron from Game of Thrones… yeah, bloody cool, ey?
Artemis Fowl himself comes across a bit cold, set up to his detriment by an unfitting scene with the school therapist, accusing him of being conceited. Diggums, relaying the story to us, tells us that Artemis is a genius, able to win chess tournaments at seven and clone a sheep at twelve, and I think that would have been enough characterisation to lead us into his homelife with his father and the bigger challenge to come. There’s a lot of telling-and-not-showing in the first act, with moments of Diggum’s narration feeling like you’re being read a bedtime story instead of watching a movie. An overreliance on narration is never good, but I guess the movie feels like it has a lot to set up and for us to understand; although I feel with narration, less is more, and I think of an alien world like Star Wars that has zero narration and feels completely immersive.
The biggest beacon of glowing criticism has got to be the character of Juliet Butler (Tamara Smart). What was the movie doing with her? She’s Dom’s niece, and she was in and out of the action like a hyper cat through a door-flap. Was she even real? Or was she an apparition, that only Artemis Fowl can see from time to time? Not only did she add nothing to the movie, she was so unnecessary, with her uncle being boss enough to protect Artemis and also be his friend. My only thought is that she must be important in the sequels, and not wanting to neglect her presence like the Harry Potter movies did with some key characters (Peeves, Nearly Headless Nick), the movie thought it best to have her pop in every now and then and say G’day. There are heaps of questionable choices if you want to get into it; like why put poor dwarfs in a cage with fire-breathing goblins – that’s just a recipe for death. How have the humans not clicked that something is going on when the clean-up fairies merely remove magical mishaps from their vicinity but leave the scene in a complete mess? A lot of my criticism of this movie would fall on the dialogue; there just seemed to be a lot of bland generalisations uttered that would warrant a ‘please explain’ for clarity; disappointing, unrealistic chatter.
But for me, Artemis Fowl was like hoeing into a stack of buttery toast; not sure if I felt good about myself afterwards for liking it but there’s damn sure no denying that I did, and I’d happily come back for a sequel. A perfect movie, it ain’t; in fact, there’s enough questionable moments to count into the twenties if you want to. But looking past that and to the intention of the movie, I’d say there’s a golden nuggie within the fuzz. Artemis Fowl doesn’t blow it’s load like Alita: Battle Angel either, and if a sequel is coming, there seems to be much more of the universe to explore. Who is the shrouded villain? It sounded like Judi Dench, right? I thought perhaps it could’ve been Short’s father too, but that kind’ve got shutdown by one of Opal’s taunts near the end. Please don’t let it be Emperor Palpatine back from the dead again, Disney, please!
2.5
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