Michael's Movie Grade: F
It is hard to believe that a high level filmmaker like Kenneth Branagh and as popular a studio as Disney could possibly create and release a film as terrible as Artemis Fowl. This movie could serve as a guideline of how not to make a fantasy film, as everything that can go wrong did.
This movie fails on every imaginable level. The characters are completely bland and some are even so forgettable you forget about them while you are watching the film, the action scenes are horribly executed (how this could be the same director that made Thor is beyond my understanding), the CGI is unpleasant to look at, the story is beyond rushed, there is a lot of horribly forced exposition, the narration often tells us what we can clearly see on screen, the humor is cringeworthy and a fantasy world that never feels real. I have never read the books, as I don't read much Young Adult fantasy, but from what I have heard, Artemis is more of an anti-hero in the books and how I wish he was that here. Why? Because that would have given him some sort of personality, which he is completely lacking here. What makes many of the best fantasy movies work is that the characters feel real and believable. This allows us to accept and believe the fantasy because we believe the characters. When we don't believe those characters, than everything feels artificial and there is therefore no reason to visit the world of the movie. I also being one who has never read the books, will assume that the books take more time to tell the story than this film does, because this movie seems like it is trying to do to much in too little of a time, leaving the film with little time to do any of that properly. The worst thing I can say about this movie, is that I simply can't see one thing to recommend it to anyone for.
This movie is proof that talented filmmakers are not perfect and sometimes can put out a complete and utter dud that is well below what they are capable of doing.
Note: This movie so obviously wants a sequel, but will hopefully never get one.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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