On 17 January 2022, I watched Artemis Fowl, Disney's movie take on the eponymous young adult novels (or, more specifically, the first two) by bestselling Irish author Eoin Colfer.
Directed and co-produced by Kenneth Branagh, and released by Disney in 2020 directly onto its Disney+ streaming platform, rather than in cinemas after having been beset by all manner of release problems including the Covid pandemic, Artemis Fowl received some truly awful critic reviews. Yet it came across to me as being a perfectly fine, immensely enjoyable fantasy romp that I'm very happy to have finally seen, after having wanted to for such a long time.
I've only read the first novel in the A.F. series (there are several) , but it was enough to keep me informed as to the basic plot and what was happening in the movie – a lot, as it so happens. Moreover, viewing this captivating film only served to reaffirm my long-held suspicion (nay, belief) that you should never take any notice of critics, especially professional ones, who may well have professional axes to grind.
The movie centres upon a young criminal mastermind genius, Artemis Fowl Jr (Ferdia Shaw), who lives with his antiquities dealer father A.F. Snr (Colin Farrell) at their huge but secluded family mansion in Ireland. After Snr goes missing and is accused in his absence regarding the theft of numerous priceless artefacts, his son discovers with the help of his faithful bodyguard/butler Dom (Nonso Anozie) that Snr's researches and those of his predecessors have discovered that fairies and other elven entities are real, inhabiting a hidden world deep beneath our own on the surface.
However, their greatest treasure, the intensely magical, immensely powerful Aculos, has also gone missing, and Opal Koboi, an evil fairy renegade, has kidnapped Snr, holding him hostage and threatening to kill him unless Jnr finds the Aculos and hands it over to her, whereupon she intends to use it to wipe out humanity. Nice.
Needless to say, Jnr is not taking this disturbing turn of events lying down, and does a little kidnapping of his own – namely, a fairy reconnaisance officer, Captain Holly Short (Lara McDonnell). Things soon become seriously complex (and not a little dryly comedic), especially when Short's own superior, the acerbic but loyal Commander Julius Root (Judi Dench, yes indeed!), becomes involved, together with a giant-sized kleptomaniac dwarf memorably named Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad), and some truly humungous trolls, plus a centaur science nerd named Foaly (makes sense, I suppose!). Needless to say, the CGI utilized here is, fittingly, out of this – or any other – world!
And yes, as critics have taken pains to point out ad infinitum (et ad nauseam!), the plot does frequently deviate quite significantly from that of the original novels. In particular, but instigated deliberately by director Branagh, Artemis Fowl Jnr is far more benevolent (and hence more identifiable with by the audience) than his far less humane, anti-heroic criminal boy genius counterpart in the novels may have been. Also, for example, his father doesn't appear (and his kidnapping doesn't occur) until the second novel; it is The Book (the Fairies' arcane tome documenting their magic and their ancient lore controlling it) that is being sought in the first novel, not the Aculos (which was invented specifically for the movie); and Commander Root is a male, not female, character in the novels.
(At least it doesn't include any characters from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, a surreal situation that was actually proposed in a bizarre early idea for the movie, in which it was planned as a fantasy pastiche, parodying the genre in general, rather than as a specific portrayal of Colfer's works. Happily, this incongruous notion was soon jettisoned during the numerous rewrites that followed.)
But hey, storyline modifications notwithstanding, the result is still an absolutely engrossing movie in its own right. Consequently, I don't really see the problem here. So feel free to ignore the critics, and enjoy Artemis Fowl for what it is – fantastic escapist fun, and visually astonishing. But if you don't believe me, check out its official trailer here on YouTube, and see for yourselves!
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