Steve Van Den Barg

Even if you haven't read the books, this film is awful. Its poor writing shows that the people that adapted it for screen just copied whatever they felt like from Eoin Colfer, and added whatever nonsense they felt like to make it more "Disney". The acting is subpar at best, with many of the actors over-selling their parts, or barely acting at all (looking at you here Dench). The entire thing feels forced, as if they had to make it a super-nice-happy-friend-time movie. I choose to believe that the author of the books didnt have a say in the screen writing, because if he did we would have gotten a better quality story, instead of the horrible mashup of cliches and inconsistencies that this turned out to be. I can say all of this as someone who enjoys movies, and can recognize a bad one. The other reviews that talk from the perspective of a book fan are also correct, simply because this is a terrible adaptation of a wonderful story. It didnt need any sprucing, or modernizing, or equality-pleasing changes. The books are still popular today, as they are without changes. So why would they need to change the story to make a movie? This movie was a waste of time and money to produce, and if Eoon Colfer isn't ashamed of how it came out, he should be