Artemis Fowl: A film critique by a member of it's target audience.
DON’T WATCH THIS FILM!
This film is nothing like the first book, the only similarity is in Artemis’ name. For some reason the character of Butler is now known as Domovoi, why, why change his name? Juliet is now randomly his niece and she’s no longer 16 she’s 12. Also, Holly is supposed to be 30 in human years now she’s like 13 just so there can be a romance between Artemis and her, even though Artemis kidnapped and tortured her in the book and she’s now teaming up and being friends with Artemis.
They also got rid of something that’s sad, happy and sentimental. The mom we all remember from the books, the mam who had dementia and the person for whom Artemis gave back half of the fairy gold he had gotten for ransom. In return, in the book, Holly cured his mam and then there was that nice moment when Artemis and his mam hug and she wishes him a merry Christmas and they left that out of the film.
The CGI is terrible, the troll makes me laugh, Foaly doesn’t look good at all and Mulch’s unhinged jaw just didn’t work. Don’t get me wrong, I love Josh Gad. He’s a great actor and he played the part very well, it wasn’t his fault that the script is terrible.
One of the things that annoyed me the most was that Holly is supposed to be the first female officer which is why she has to do better than everyone else and why people are depending on her to do a good job. However, in this film Commander Root is a woman (why????) and now Holly is not the first female officer erasing a central theme of empowering women.
Here’s something that really annoys me, in this film Artemis is a good guy but in the source material he’s not a good guy he’s the villain/antihero of the story. This is what my sister said “As the books go on he grows as a person and as he matures he becomes like not necessarily good but a fully realised person with good sides and bad. He develops the ability to make complex moral decisions and display altruistic, other-centered character traits”.
This is a terrible movie there are so many other things that I didn’t even mention. Like the fact that the dad discovered fairies, the edge lord villain and the fairy handbook all which is a waste of space in story telling. I hope they don’t make a second film and if they do they better make it right and cast me as Artemis. If you are a fan of the books, even if you’ve never read the books, don’t watch this movie!!!!!
That is why I give it 0.5 out of 10
By Lachlan Dempsey