[MOVIE REVIEW] A Garbagefire Trying to Be a Movie, or: Disney Ruining Everyone's Childhood, Again! - Artemis Fowl

Like many I waited for years to finally see Artemis Fowl as a movie. This boy, this book series that was just as much part of my growing up as Harry Potter is something near and dear to my heart and I waited patiently. I actually never thought we would get anything because for some reason it never got the hype it should have gotten in my opinion. So when I heard that it would finally become a movie I was excited.

Of course that was in about 2013 when Disney acquired the rights so that should have told me enough about how horrendous this adaptation would be as it took this long to be made. The last time I was this pissed off about an adaptation was when I watched The Last Airbender (also Suicide Squad but that was a shit movie in general and I'm not too familiar with the source material unlike in the case of ATLA and Artemis Fowl) so you can imagine already what this movie was like.

It ripped out my heart, spit and stepped on it, put it through the meat-grinder, and left it for dead in the gutter. I actually waited for the movie to come out before I fully judged it even though I found some changes we could see in the teaser questionable. When I recently finally saw the trailer I knew this wouldn't go over well.

For those of you who do not know the story of Artemis Fowl let me summarize the first book as spoiler-free as possible.

Artemis Fowl the Second - the son of an Irish crime boss called Artemis Fowl the First - who, after the disappearance and possible death of his father who was trying to go on a venture that was supposed to finally make them some legal money and which lost the Fowl family a good amount of their vast finances, abducts a fairy with the help of his bodyguard Butler (who is described as Eurasian usually, some say Russian-Japanese but I can't recall where it's written) to extort gold from the fae folk. Artemis, who is too smart for his own good and manages to confuse and frighten even adults by the way he speaks in an adult as well as calculating if not heartless way, still has a bit of that childlike innocent left to at least consider fairies might be real and that way finds clues for them actually existing online before the story even starts.

He and Butler travel to Vietnam to find a fairy they found out about and blackmail her into giving them access to The Book which is kind of like a bible and a guide for the fae folk as it contains a lot of information about them. Artemis later on translates it entirely to find out how he might extort money from the fae folk.

They go on to abduct an elf (fairy being just an umbrella term though there are fairies in the book as well) called Holly Short after the translation of the books. Holly is an officer of the Lower Elements Police (LEP), more specifically the division LEPrecon tasted with reconnaissance in case any member of the fae folk escapes the Lower Elements and ends up getting seen or potentially seen by humans. Holly is the first female captain in that division which puts a lot of pressure on her as well as her commander, Commander Root, a more or less constantly angry old elf. While Holly isn't the first woman in the LEP she is the first female captain in her division and her having to prove herself double because of that is her main motivation throughout the story as well as a big influence on her more rash decisions and stubborn nature.

Her abduction from a place at which she was supposed to replenish her magic (picking an acorn from an ancient oak tree next to a riverbend and burying it somewhere else while saying "I return you to the earth, and claim the gift that is my right") is what leads to a lot of fairy politics, some wanting to get further up in the LEP food chain, other's just wanting to save Holly, and a thieving dwarf (called Mulch Diggums) being send into Fowl Manor to find out what's going on inside. It also leads to us seeing the genius of Artemis Fowl as he anticipates almost everything like it's a game of chess.

Artemis works under the assumption that the LEP will conform to certain rules and ideas so some things don't go as planned but he is still able to outsmart them somewhat and gets his gold. This last part is very vague for spoiler reasons.

The book itself has a prologue and an epilogue which are the introduction and conclusion of a psych evaluation done by a LEP psychiatrist (who has a small role in the book as well) on Artemis Fowl. This book is basically this evaluation in form of a retelling of the already mentioned events. In general you will find the topic of psych evaluation a lot in this series. Also, the disappearance of Artemis Fowl Senior made Artemis Fowl Junior's mother Angeline develop a strong form of depression which resulted in her developing a couple more mental illnesses as well. A person's psyche is definitely a focus of this story and the following to some degree.

There are also elements of having to work with your enemy if a worse enemy appears, while not really trusting each other, and Artemis starts to learn to be a bit of a better person in the following books as well. Especially remember this part when I'll talk about the movie next.

The movie I'm gonna spoil a bit here already because I don't care.

The movie is about a young and very smart boy called Artemis Fowl who was raised by his dad on fairy stories. His mom sadly died some time ago and his father is often absent for work reasons. Artemis apparently likes surfing and has to see his school counselor as he is apparently a bit of a problem child in school due to his smarts. One can also find him taking some kind of hoverboard to get home to his family's manor.

One day Artemis sees on TV that his dad is supposedly a criminal having stolen artifacts and art all over the world. And then he gets a call from someone who apparently has abducted Artemis' dad and wants to ransom him for something called "The Oculus" (which is a giant golden magical acorn thingy) which he supposedly stole from the fae folk.
This is when Butler shows Artemis a secret cellar containing information and such about the fairies so Artemis can find his dad with it and the things his father taught him about them.

Down under, in the Lower Elements we get to know the kleptomaniac dwarf Mulch who is not just a dwarf but a "giant dwarf" and see him and Holly interact as he's being processed for jail. Holly seems to find him quite amusing and while she knows he pick-pocketed her she doesn't seem to realize he stole her.. walkman?? Some music box kinda thing. Anyway. Through Holly we get to meet Commander Root who is still grumpy but in an old woman kind of way as Movie-Root is played by Judi Dench. That way we find out that Holly wants to find out about her dad (which we later find out was supposedly a traitor but details that apparently someone else has to divulge, mainly that apparently he took the Oculus?) who died some time ago and disgraced her family name. We also get to meet the centaur Foaly but he's only really there for some tech stuff.

Holly is sent up to the ground to do her job as a Recon officer just as she was in the book minus a few details. After the job is when she went to replenish her magic in the book, in the movie she takes the detour to get to where she would apparently find a clue to what happened to her father and does so without authorization. This is where she gets captured by Artemis and Butler and taken to Fowl Manor.

Just as in the book the LEP comes and tries to find a way to get Holly back and while there is backstabbing politics involved by the same elf as in the book his introduction and connection to the person behind Fowl Senior's abduction is a reference to book two actually. This is one of the few parts where the two books merge.

Meanwhile inside the Manor Holly and Artemis bond over their daddy issues and the fact that both their dads are involved with the Oculus which in turn leads to Artemis letting Holly out of her cage when Mulch is getting into the house. Mulch also more or less immediately find a safe in the house behind a picture of Fowl Senior which contains the Oculus for some reason as Holly and Artemis arrive and both want to use it for personal gain. In turn the backstabbing elf outside wants to paint Holly as a traitor like her dad but for some reason Root doesn't have it later on for convenience. Also when something else happens after this which I don't wanna spoil because in the book it's really cool to experience (in the movie it's just okay) the fairies outside block magic inside the house for whatever reason and unblock magic right in time for something else because convenience!

Afterwards Artemis and Holly are ready to make friendship bracelets as they call each other "Forever Friends", they then use the Oculus to get Artemis Fowl Senior back because magic teleports and such and Artemis calls his dad's abductor later on to probably frighten her but he's a complete child, calling himself a "criminal mastermind" even though the only thing he's done so far is abducting a fairy.

And we end on some more scenes with Mulch "Olaf" Diggums talking to the MI6 - as far as I can recall - (as Mulch is for some reason the narrator here) in which he says that humans could just go back after what he had just told them and leave the Fowls alone or realize living nightmares are around when nothing about the fae in this movie really screamed "I'm so fucking dangerous, I'm gonna kill all humans" except for trolls. And I can't properly quote this part but it was weird. He then gets rescued by both Fowls and Butler to do some other job while Holly flies alongside them outside their helicopter.

There are more spoilers following now as I will attempt to not slam my head against a wall while dissecting this movie.

There is a lot of stuff wrong with this movie. I'm gonna link you Dominic Noble's video about it because he hits the nail on the head.

He mentions a scene in which Root says "top o' the mornin'" and that scene is not the only one that feels stupid and completely out of context. There is the scene when Holly wakes up inside the cage in Fowl Manor and yells "not happy" at the camera for no fucking reason. And that happens even before that scene with Root. This stuff to me looks like all of the writers and Disney's found love for reshooting stuff to make a movie garbage were again a huge problem. They had to create a Frankenmovie out of what they had because some things didn't sit well with execs or whatever. Because these scenes scream that they were supposed to be part of whole scenes in which they would have fit but now they were just added for reasons of length or whatever.

Not to mention all the already mentioned character assassinations and some more stuff that were too much to fit into my wannabe summaries of the book and movie plots.

Butler is a badass and highly trained fighter in the books who can also act like a spy. Butler in the movie is there and a bodyguard but for some reason Artemis fights alongside him which gets as Men in Black: Kids Edition scenes that aren't a thing in the books. Artemis is the brains, Butler is the brawn. I have more to say on his character later that actually explains why they had to change him so much but that's for another part of this rant. What I don't get about Butler though is why they had to make his teenage sister (I think she was about 16 or 17 but I can't recall) his niece and a 12-year-old who said she was Artemis' best friend even though you can't see shit and she's just there for exposition of sorts and doesn't even fight at the end. Also, she makes sandwiches because a 12-year-old black girl is only good for that. Please note the sarcasm!

Cudgeon - the backstabbing elf - is not a pompous and ditsy seeming idiot who is actually not that dumb when it comes to getting what he wants but instead gets his revenge story from the second book already in this movie even though it's not really making much sense and to be honest with the amount of telling instead of showing I kind of missed the part when Fowl Senior's abductor (who by the way is Opal Koboi from the second book) said what the reason was for him working for her and there was no indication otherwise from the other LEP officers what the hell was going on with him. Or as Dominic said in his wonderful video "[Cudgeon] who you can tell is evil because he's wearing an ascot" and that's about it with Cudgeon. A character that in the book showed how similar humans and fairies actually are. That both can be driven by their desires, no matter if it's gold or getting that promotion you want even if it's just for boasting.

Mulch is basically the only one who gets some of his book characters personality but only slightly so. Mainly just him being a bit of a pain in the ass because of the way he talks to law enforcement. He's a dwarf that works alone in the books for the most part and just gets drawn into stuff through bribery usually but for some reason he works for the Fowls at the end of this movie.
Also, there is a scene in which he listens to Holly's walkman thingy and there is human music on there which doesn't make any sense because the fairies aren't really into human stuff. Holly in the book actually has some hate for humans because of how we destroy the environment. Again something that could have been part of this movie especially in the social climate we have but it wasn't.

Let's talk about the character assassination of Artemis as well which is why I think that the writers and the director (I expected more, Kenneth) and probably also Disney itself because "disney-fying" is getting more of an actual thing than it has ever been think children won't understand some things. Like an anti-hero or a villain being the main character of a story. Movie-Artemis is a problem child at school because of his smarts and because his mom died. Book-Artemis is a problem child at school because of his smarts and because he can weasel himself out of anything because of that. In the first chapter of the second book we find the scene they tried to create in the beginning of the movie. Which is fair and could be a good introduction to the character. In the book the psychologist is a bit better than any other that tried to analyze Artemis but Artemis still manages to divert attention from questions asked and even tries to manipulating the guy into thinking he's actually getting somewhere before turning around and calling all the psychologists who tried to crack him "so-called counselors [who] are little better than misguided do-gooders with degrees". He then leaves after Butler calls him about something and as Artemis has no respect he just picks up his phone in the middle of the session. Movie-Artemis throws a temper tantrum and leaves because his parents were mentioned and for some reason he has underlying anger issues.

Not to mention a later scene in which Butler asks him if he's scared and Artemis says he is a bit. We're talking about a creepy 12-year-old who is basically always in control and tries to be mature beyond his age in the books. Someone who only in very certain situations when he can't control himself properly anymore shows that he's a kid. Movie-Artemis is nothing like that. He's still a boy, he hasn't already worked as a con-artist before unlike his book counterpart, he wears jeans and sneakers while driving a hoverboard because he needs to be #relatable. Artemis shouldn't be relatable in certain instances. He's a villain or at least some kind of anti-hero later on who just happens to be the main character of the story. He has few redeeming qualities, one being the love for his mother.

Not to mention that Artemis is supposed to be incredibly smart, annoyingly so, and through that figures out about fairies actually existing and manages to exploit them and in the movie his dad did all the work beforehand. Artemis does nothing because this movie tries to press so many things into one instead of trying to get the essence of the story. All he does actually is trying to act smart (please don't blame the boy who played him!), making exposition, and for some reason fight alongside Butler which does not make any fucking sense whatsoever except for those scenes looking like they tried to make him seem like a cool kid action hero. Take some pointers from Spy Kids because that movie got it and the Artemis Fowl movie was just ridiculous. Especially because it was never really established why this kid knows how to fight or doesn't get thrown back by the recoil of a gun which he has never shot before!

I read the first book when I was about 10 or 11 - I'm 28 now, almost 29 - and I got that I can like this character while knowing he's not a good person. I could deal with the violence and more "adult topics" without being afraid of them. I understand maybe leaving out some violent scenes from the end and changing them up to keep the movie PG but that's about it. Aside from that no changes make sense to me because I find children can deal with morally grey characters and even parents with mental health issues. If Sesame Street can do episodes on police brutality and the prison system in the US in a child appropriate way, your book adaptation that is said to be for kids under the guidance of parents (because that's what PG suggests as a rating) can leave those elements in as well. Instead it's just a somewhat colorful story about "the power of friendship and love" with fairies. Barbie Fairytopia did that better.

Pretty sure they also toned down the tech and the violence so they didn't have to deal with the "bio bomb" which is a nasty thing that can kill any organic matter fast and easily. And still, kid me understood. Kid me understood that humans and fairies can both do horrendous things if they have no other choice or if they are motivated enough. Kid me knew when reading that this was a horrible thing to use but I could understand the motivation coming from desperation even though I didn't agree with it. Kids can do that, especially if you talk to them about it and make them understand that people don't always make good choices. This is a middle-grade book and I don't think anyone complained about that aspect back then. Not as far as I know at least. I mean, let's be real here, people only complain when you have more than one capable POC or someone from the LGBT+ community in a story for kids. And with the Butlers people probably forgot that they were half-Asian (or at least Butler was, not so sure about Juliet) as they were half-white as well.

I'm not going to talk about the CGI or the costume design (even though I think the LEP looked like Oompa Loompas but they do wear jumpsuits in the books so..) as it's not too bad. Except for some stuff but out of the overall issues with this movie that stuff is mostly just really small. This movie is a great example of character assassination, of disneyfying a story, and of fast pacing that never stops and never manages to make much sense because they had to make it the length of a Disney animated movie. This story would have profited of being about the same length as the first Harry Potter movie. We have been getting used to children's movies getting longer, especially if they are adaptations. Why not use it? Why make it this length and ruining the pacing as well as the story itself?
Not to mention that the pacing is also ruined through illogical convenience and sudden allyships for no reason before shit goes down. And the writing overall also sucks because of stuff like the time freeze (which had been broken by Butler but in the books it can only stay up for a certain amount of time anyway) blowing instead of a bio-bomb and Root saying they have to leave and Artemis and the Butlers won't survive but for some reason that is not explained they survive it, which is why I think they had the bio-bomb before but were made to change it as well as some other stuff. Like, this movie was cut together from what it was supposed to be and what had to be reshot probably that it could only be a mess like this. If you use reshoots to change a movie it often can end up a mess. Reshoots are supposed to add stuff that has been forgotten or to enhance the pacing not to decide you want to change the movie completely. That's how you get the "top o' the mornin'" and stupid "friendship, love and rainbows" stuff that doesn't work whatsoever. The pacing is so bad that it won't even make much sense to newcomers. At least they don't have to deal with knowing how wrong these characters are which is a plus for them.

And don't let me start talking about the soundtrack trying way too hard to make the "dramatic" scenes even more dramatic and one supposedly heartfelt then funny scene so "emotional" and then "so funny" it was just missing a record scratch. It was bad. I'm blaming it again on the editing because I wouldn't be surprised if that's at fault here.

There is so much more in terms of writing, pacing and overall not-existing logic but I'm already rambling like a mad woman here because of how pissed off this makes me. I'm so annoyed that the actual funny scenes were barely any fun to me. I'm also not expecting much from the rather late release it's gonna get here in Germany (official release is in August for some reason) as our cinema news outlets for the most part have already talked about the very bad reviews it already got in the US so that's gonna affect people wanting to see this movie. To be honest, I don't even feel like Disney put much into promoting it anyway so whatever.

But some things need to be said about the casting because - oh, boy - there are things that just do not work whatsoever and are at fault for horrendous story arcs as well.

Usually trying to have an actual diverse cast is a great idea. So obviously having people of color casted in certain speaking roles and as extras especially for the fairies is great. Unfortunately the main cast is still very white and this movie also exchanges one character who is a person of color anyway for a person of color of a completely different race. I'm talking about Butler here. I guess that whoever casted this movie thought that Butler is white. He's half-Asian, like I mentioned already some say half-Japanese even though I can't recall when that was said in the book and the fandom wiki doesn't source their shit. He was always described as a tall, big, quite intimidating looking Eurasian man. Asians - no matter if they're East Asians or not - already have a shit position when it comes to getting roles in the acting business. So why do you take this job that could have gone to someone Asian and give it to another POC? Especially when the role of Butler has even worse connotations when he's played by a black man? Being the bodyguard to some white kid is not exactly great no matter which race one belongs to that isn't white, but this character being played by a black man just supports stereotypes left and right, from "aggressive black male" to "the servant". They tried to water that down by using his first name in the movie (fun fact: in the book only very few people actually know his first name) and making him be a more sensitive kinda guy who also cries. Bravo, a man with emotions. Still a horrible written version of the character because Butler isn't even emotionless in the books but has to push them down sometimes because of his job. That's also part of his growth over the following books and he's fiercely protective of his little sister Juliet in the books.

On that note, Foaly, the tech guy centaur is played - wait for it - by a guy named Nikesh Patel. Yes, you heard right. The tech support is of Indian descent. At least he doesn't have to put on a fake Indian accent. Talking about stereotypes. On top of that he's not a sassy Foaly who annoys the hell out of Root all the time and he's just there to once a while give them commentary on failing tech or whatever. And he says this one line which is "I just love science" which sounds like someone wrote a high school teen comedy script and tried to pass this off as the nerdy character showing how nerdy they are. And Foaly is actually a brilliant inventor which we don't see anything of in this movie as he's basically just - as I said - "tech support" here. I'm eating my hat! I feel sorry for Nikesh Patel and Nonso Anozie. They both seem like good actors but this movie even made Judi Dench, Colin Farrell, and Josh Gad look bad. I've seen both men act before and liked them way more in what I've seen there instead of this movie.

Also, making Root female - while in other works might have worked - completely destroys Holly's whole story and her motivation. Not to mention that her dad doesn't even have a name in the books but her mother has, and her mother had been an LEP officer herself. Making Root female not only negates Holly's story but making the driving force behind Holly's movie motivation her dad and completely ignoring her mother (which isn't even mentioned in the movie) is so fake and not progressive.

Talking about "not progressive", fridging Artemis' mom instead of actually trying to show a loving mother who suffers from mental illness and the effect that can have on your child (faster "growing up" because the child has to take care of themselves, Book-Artemis being rather cold to his mom and only calling her "mother" for a long time so he won't have to deal with the emotions - just to name some stuff) is basically like "well, we casted POC and women. That's enough representation. And children won't understand it anyway" and call it a day. Probably also why they made Mulch into a "giant dwarf" and have him be played by Josh Gad instead of someone who is actually a person with Dwarfism like any other dwarf seen in the movie. That's just lazy casting and writing.

And on the topic of lazy writing: Artemis calling himself a "criminal mastermind" at the end of the movie when he's done shit aside from kidnapping Holly is just the most stupid way of ending this. You're actually going to confuse kids more about what being a criminal actually is through this as he hasn't done more than this and created a story in which Holly and Artemis are basically about to braid each other's hair! Letting him be a despicable person would have made more sense because kids know values and morals and can even understand those somewhat they haven't experienced yet. And like I said, maybe talk to your kids.

This movie insulted everyone who loves movies or who loves books. This is my Percy Jackson adaptation and it's like The Last Airbender all over again. This movie wanted to try stuff and failed utterly in doing so. I don't want to be the conspiracy theorist here but by now I feel like Disney tries too hard to appease every little group in existence just to get brownie points from both marginalized groups and offended Karens and Chads. This is getting worse and I'm furious. I've seen quite a few children's movies and I haven't seen a trainwreck like this since the ATLA movie. It doesn't get into my head why studios think changing up the story too much will make for a great adaptation. Yes, some changed have to be made because of the medium but completely fucking over what made people love the source material isn't a good idea.

I have four pages of notes on some stuff in this movie and I haven't talked about all if it. But the huge-ass WTF at the end should tell you my feelings. I'm mad and I won't get over it, same as with Suicide Squad which I'm still rambling about sometimes because that was also a fucking mess.

Don't watch this movie. Read the books.

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Disclaimer: If there are any mistakes in spelling or grammar, I apologize. Also, I can't recall every small detail about the books anymore unfortunately so I might have forgotten something in my explanations. And as always: this is my opinion and mine only except for the video and quote of Dominic Noble who I probably channeled by accident in this rant as I've been watching his videos a lot recently. I don't own any IP mentioned or am affiliated with Disney in any way.


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