Review of Artemis Fowl (2020) by Lestat57 — 31 Aug 2020

Absolutely no shred of respect towards the source material. Eoin Colfer should disown this garbage if possible. Only redeeming quality is the personality Josh Gad managed to give to Mulch Diggums, which is why I give at least 1 point.

The changes to the original story are so dramatic that it doesn't deserve the title "adaptation" anymore, I'm not even sure "loosely based" fits here. It's like the people who made the script didn't even bother to read the books, it's like they just heard what the books are roughly about from someone who read them a decade ago. While he was drunk. Then they got drunk and made this.

The changes to some of the main characters traits, race and even sex are something I just can't explain and it's really really insulting. Holly should be "of dark colour", she is pale white. Domovoi Butler should be - and this is even plot-related - of Russian-Japanese descent, whose family protected Fowls from around year 1100, he is somehow an African (with Slim Shady dyed hair and obvious fake colored lenses.. I mean seriously who came up with that). "Julius Root" should be an angry little cigar-smoking man, not a noble misses M from James Bond. Foaly should be old and hairy, not young and metrosexual. And Mulch Diggums (while the actor gave him a lot of personality) should have looked anything but human.

Budget for this cringe-worthy Frankenstein monstrosity was around a third bigger than any of the Lord of the Rings movies.