Review of Artemis Fowl (2020) by Jacobstones — 12 Jun 2020

Dont get yourself distracted by all those whiney toxic reviews, As a die hard artemis book fan I can say this movie is, despite beeing very imperfect, worth watching. Its MUCH closer to the Original than I thought from the trailers, and to my surprise one can find some hints that they actually read it all, like artemis and holly changing eye colours. (Even this is not book one).

Generally, this movie feels like all books cramped in one, if this would have been a series it would have been a whole lot better.

The effects are decent but there is, for no reason, too much cgi. cast is actually good but acting always feels wierd because there is no way to properly act on this pace. They barely have any time for caracter development and everything is just too fast to be believable.

The main concerns that I still have is Artemis feeling somewhat cringey/not evil enough, and butler is somehow not characterized at all. But if you look closely that all boils down to pace, and that again to cut. The vietnam scene is missing completely despite beeing in the trailers, and thats what makes the movie feel wierd. Half an hour more of seeing artemis and butler carrying out a plan together would have made it all more believable. (Like the goddamn book).

And thats sad because some script ideas are actually genius, like mulch acting reminiscent of jack sparrow and the idea that Artemis could have gotten to know Holly a lot better while he kept her jailed, as well as the subplot with her father. Yes you can shame this movie for beeing unsure who the audience is and as a "cineast" would barely consider it beeing good, but for a fan, it is definitly a must watch.