Caleb Lim

Stunningly original and woven with sublime intricacy, Christopher Nolan's action-thriller abounds with incredible set-pieces and a delightfully tricky storyline that showcases his skill at creating coherent worlds filled with the wildest of concepts. Although lacking in character development, murky and frustratingly shallow motivations and backgrounds, along with a general lack of clarity, especially in the final act, it is still a remarkably tense and gripping narrative. It is firstly an experience of puzzle-box plotting and brilliant spectacle and atmosphere which sacrifices character for intensity. This is a movie which pulls on Nolan's trademark skill of foreshadowing and set-up to create a film which rewards the viewer for their close attention.

As a movie by itself? 2 stars. Incoherent plot, very wooden acting, characters were boring, worldbuilding somehow about as interesting as paint drying, character motivation thrown everywhere to justify a rushed plot. CGI I thought was really well done and a couple set-pieces were decent to watch. If I took into context being a book fan, this would get one star. Interesting character arcs thrown away in favour of B-movie tropes and generic plotlines, movie somehow makes Artemis a criminal mastermind despite him not doing anything really criminal and barely a genius at all. The books not only far more convincing but also had a better plot. This is not film snobbery. This is a bad movie. This is a bad kid's movie, too, unless your definition of "good kid's movie" is a rush of colours and weird-looking characters with some random wide-eyed kid in the middle. I wish they'd come up with their own original fairy world to stuff this plot and characters in. Would've been much more convincing as a straightforward action-comedy starring fairies and an Irish kid. Attempting to shade this movie with a couple darker undertones and combine various plot points spread across the books, along with the most idiotic character arc (hero to villain) ever put to screen turns what could've been a generically fun 3 star romp into a 2 star movie close to a garbage fire. Bad. Like I said. As a book fan 1 star. But on it's own merits the movie is vaguely enjoyable enough to warrant 2 stars. Make no mistake this is not good. Hope they never make a sequel and reboot this with a better screenplay in 10 years.