Cameron Schiessl

If you are a fan of the books, I would strongly recommend you reread the series instead of watching this travesty. I was supremely disappointed by this, and I can’t help but wonder what Disney was thinking. Obviously movie adaptations have to change things for time constraints etc. we have seen this in other famous fantasy films such as Harry Potter and lord of the rings. But changing the core of a character like Artemis Fowl, completely eradicates what the author took time to build over a series of several books. In fairness, the visuals were typically impressive, and I feel the cast would have been fine for their chosen roles, had the script actually been written for there to be any amount of character development. Artemis is supposed to be a bad guy. And through his experiences and emotional bonds he forms, he becomes a more well rounded person. Disney decided they wanted “good guy protagonist #12” instead of a true depiction of the character. While the film did hit several of the notes of the first book, it felt rushed and flat. It was hard to get any emotional ties, because we never got to know any of the characters beyond what they told us to believe about them (gotta love excessive narration). And before anyone says “well it feels rushed because it’s condensed into a 90 minute film.” Let me say to you, why then is there 15 minutes of egregious back patting at the end of the movie? The one good thing I will say about this film is it has encouraged me to reread the series once again. TL:DR The movie chose to replace depthful characters with flat carbon copies, and fancy visuals can’t save that.