Mark Reviews Movies: ARTEMIS FOWL

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 12, 2020

"My name is Artemis Fowl," the protagonist says, "and I'm a criminal mastermind." This is a statement of definition, of intent, and of purpose, and the twist is that it's stated by a 12-year-old boy. It's a pretty intriguing and promising setup for a main character, and the most telling thing about Artemis Fowl is that this statement arrives during the epilogue.

As a result, the movie, an adaptation of the first novel in Eoin Colfer's series about the eponymous character, spends a lot of time without much definition, intent, or purpose. Our hero is a hyper-intelligent kid, who defeated a chess master at the age of 9 and cloned a sheep by the age of 11. He has a bit of an entitled attitude, given his intelligence and the fact that he lives in a grand, isolated manor on the coast of Ireland. He mostly just wants the attention of his father, an antiquities dealer whose methods might be on the criminal side of shady.

That's the setup for this movie's version of Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw), who's little like the character as presented in Colfer's 2001 book and nothing like the character's own, final description of himself. Here, Artemis is a vaguely smart kid, and we know it because he repeatedly hints that he's aware of what's about to happen in the plot.

The plot mostly matters to screenwriters Conor McPherson and Hamish McColl. It's pretty straightforward: Artemis' father Artemis Sr. (Colin Farrell) is abducted by a mysterious villain, and young Artemis must retrieve a MacGuffin as a ransom for his father. There's a significant twist, in that the MacGuffin is a relic from a secret realm of magical creatures, who live and have created an advanced society near the center of the Earth. Magic and fairies and dwarves and goblins exist. Since the nature of our young hero has more or less been scrapped by the movie, that world of fantastical creatures takes over the story's focus.

The resulting movie, directed by Kenneth Branagh, is a bit of a mess. That's not because we don't understand what's happening. Indeed, the screenplay goes out of its way to explain as much as possible about this world, its history, its rules, and its magical and technological potential. That's the messy part: The movie spends so much time explaining its various setups that the telling of a story feels like an afterthought.

The plot matters most, yes, and the most important matter of the plot is an excuse to present a whole bunch of trivial details, fantastical creatures, magic, and technology. The story here, in other words, feels like the setup for another story to be told in a sequel or two. If the rushed climax and multiple questions remaining at the end of the movie are any indication, that's the plan.

After the unidentified (through the whole movie) villain with the vague plan (something about taking over the worlds of humans and magic) tells young Artemis to obtain the MacGuffin (a relic that can open portals anywhere), we're introduced to the underground realm of magic, a bustling metropolis of decent visual effects (although there's so much happening in the establishing shots that it just looks busy). After stopping a troll in Italy, fairy police officer Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) goes looking for her missing father (one of the many dangling plot threads left by the end). Artemis—with his trusty butler, named Butler (Nonso Anozie)—captures Holly, holds her ransom, and demands that her boss Commander Root (Judi Dench) hand over the MacGuffin.

The rest of the story has the fairies trying to rescue Holly, as Artemis connects with his prisoner and manipulates the magical creatures' powers to find the MacGuffin. Also involved are a giant dwarf named Mulch Diggum (Josh Gad), who unhinges his jaw (and drops the rear flap of his pants) to create tunnels by eating (and expelling) dirt, and Butler's niece Juliet (Tamara Smart), whose character certainly exists in this story (One assumes she's introduced so as to be important in a sequel). The villain also has a spy in the fairies' ranks, but that detail matters as much as the villain—only to extent that it keeps the plot moving.

It does move, constantly but without any apparent purpose except to maintain momentum, while establishing the basics of characters and a world for future installments. Artemis Fowl certainly lays the groundwork for a unique protagonist—or it does in the final minutes, at least—and an imaginative world. As for an actual story featuring those elements, that, apparently, is for a future movie.

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