Some books should never be adapted into movies.
I know, what a shocking comment right? Certain books don’t adapt well into
movies. There are multiple examples
throughout film history, but it is one of the easiest methods to adapt into
film when content writers and creators are struggling for material.
But as Hollywood keeps getting lazier and more desperate
over the past twenty years especially, more and more books are getting
theatrical adaptations. So no matter how
much we all strive for original material, we are going to keep getting what
works from studios that are uninspired.
That being said, maybe if at first you don’t succeed, you
should just stop. That’s the case with
some novels that have been in development hell for years. Take today’s film we shall be discussing for
example. Artemis Fowl has been passed
around for at least twenty years prior from studio to studio. A who’s who of directors have attempted to
get this project off the ground from Lawrence Guterman to Jim Sheridan. But nobody had any idea how to translate this
series onto the big screen. And with two
studios taking on this project and going under for different reasons, whether
it be bankruptcy or Harvey Weinstein’s studio going under after being revealed
to be literal scum of the Earth; it just seemed like Artemis Fowl would never
see the light of day.
Enter the biggest film monopoly today, The Walt Disney
Corporation. If any studio can get any
project out of development hell, it would be the House of Mouse. Disney has the advertising, the track record,
and most importantly, the finances to make anything become a hit in this day
and age. They got a good director
behind this project in Kenneth Branagh.
They got some major names attached to star in Colin Farrell, Josh Gad,
and Judi Dench. And gave this film a
$125 million budget, which is absolutely enough for a film adaptation with lots
of fantasy elements….
…but then it got pushed back. Again.
And again. And again. For five years, it kept getting pushed back. And then the pandemic happened. And now Hollywood is at a standstill. Not knowing when movie theaters will be safe
to open back up to the general public again.
So studios started to send some of their projects straight to streaming
services. Except for Disney. Disney has been the only studio not eager to
send their films straight to streaming.
Mulan, Black Widow, and Soul are still getting pushed back further and
further with no real release date in sight.
Then they announced Artemis Fowl was going to get the streaming service
treatment about a month ago. This is a
big deal. Disney is finally caving
in. They are finally realizing the
future is now old man.
Or they are just cutting ties with their losses now. Guys, I’m not going to mince words. Unless a miracle happens, Artemis Fowl will
probably be locked as the worst movie of 2020 for me. Actually, I’ll go one step further. Artemis Fowl might be the worst live action
Disney family film I’ve ever seen. That
is some pretty big words from the studio that gave us “Meet the Deedles”, the
remakes of “That Darn Cat” and “The Shaggy Dog”, and failed theme park rides
turned into movies “The Country Bears” and “The Haunted Mansion”. Nope. “Artemis
Fowl” is the worst of the worst.
At the very least, all these other movies had a story. “Artemis Fowl” does not have a cohesive
story. We get the plot early on and the
movie takes a hour long detour before any sort of resolution happens. Instead we get a giant never ending chase for
a macguffin that takes twists and turns, but doesn’t tell any sort of investing
story. This film bored me to tears that
I had to keep hitting rewind to figure out if I missed any sort of actual information
regarding the main story that kept getting ditched.
And the acting.
Nobody tries. The kids are all
bad actors. Especially Artemis
himself. Those big name stars I
mentioned earlier? Colin Farrell felt
like he did his lines in three minutes.
Josh Gad was not utilized well at all.
And between “Cats” and this, I’m wondering if Judi Dench has finally
decided to just take roles for the paycheck.
She’s one of the best actresses of all time and needless to say, her
film choices of the past year have left me scratching my head.
Also, I refuse to believe Disney spent $125 million dollars
on this movie. The CGI in this is
terrible. This is a butt ugly movie to
look at. Compare this to “Onward”, an
animated movie where the CGI was so good that it made me feel like the
environment was actually real. To say
this is a downgrade is an understatement.
Disney is the biggest studio monopoly out there and they can honestly
say that this is the best CGI they can give this film? Fuck off.
But most importantly, this film just fails at being an
Artemis Fowl adaptation. As someone who
read Artemis Fowl years and years ago, Artemis Fowl is one of the best
anti-hero stories I’ve read growing up.
Is that such a hard tale to adapt into a movie? Because they make this kid out to be just
another wiz kid movie along the lines of Spy Kids or the tv series Young
Sheldon. Where this kid is so out of
touch with reality…when that’s not what Artemis Fowl was. It’s like Disney wanted to hammer out any
sort of personality from this story and try to give us just another family movie. And at the end of the day, this was not the
adaptation we deserved from this property.
Maybe Disney knew this movie would get bombarded by critics
if it got released any later under normal circumstances, so they just gave up
and sent it to streaming because critics are starving for more material and can’t
wait for movie theater life to go back to normal. I mean I’m sure as hell ready for some sense
of normalcy when it comes to movies being released again. I’ll take anything I can get at this rate to
review. But as someone who actually
enjoyed Artemis Fowl as a kid, this was not the faithful film adaptation I was
promised. This was just a stale lifeless
movie that struggles to get to a ninety minute runtime. This should have been thrown out twenty years
ago and just left as is.
Final Grade: F
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