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Artemis Fowl (2020)  

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Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, a pretty fun yet forgettable Science Fantasy romp. That being said I remember very little from the books, I read the first 2 or 3 around 15 years ago so that probably helped. 

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So I watched it again.

 

 

The problem is in order to not make Artemis look like the bad guy, they make the plot WAY more complicated than it is in the books. If they had just stuck with, you know, the thing that made the books and character special, it might still have been poorly acted by its lead , but it would have made sense.

 

Also, this is the best performance Josh Gad has ever done.

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Everyone's on about how over complicated it is but i just felt it was a stupidly simple "everyone wants the magic thingy" movie with no interesting spin to it. That perception probably comes from them taking 45 minutes to explain just "we want the magic thingy. it's bad that we don't have it". The whole cast seems to be giving about 25% of their best effort (Judi Dench has every other award so she must be really gunning for a Razzie these days), except unfortunately Josh Gad who should be sent directly to jail for his performance here.

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An almost complete disaster of the highest order, Artemis Fowl (or whatever is left of it) is an incoherent mess that makes similar Mouse House misfires like Tomorrowland and A Wrinkle in Time look like masterpieces in comparison. This is a movie that doesn't seem made for any audience in particular: kids and adults of all ages will be bored and confused, and it's clear it was reshot and hacked to death in post. Kenneth Branagh was obviously chosen just because he previously made money and well-received movies for King Mickey and not for having any fondness for the source material, while the cast fails to add life to the project, especially the listless performances from the established adult actors who either desperately needed the money or were just eager to work with Branagh again. And reshoots must've inflated the budget well above $100M because I've seen Disney Channel shows with better production values. It's easy to see why Disney delayed this fiasco for almost a year and ended up banishing it to + after COVID-19 cancelled movies for a while. Too bad they didn't just cancel it completely before even giving it the green light. D

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Maybe someone else can clear this up;

 

I kind of had the impression that AF I and Holly's father stole the thing ages ago, that Holly has been working against his "betrayal" for a while now, yet when we first see the underground, there's a news report as if this thing was just stolen.

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15 hours ago, Morieris said:

Maybe someone else can clear this up;

 

I kind of had the impression that AF I and Holly's father stole the thing ages ago, that Holly has been working against his "betrayal" for a while now, yet when we first see the underground, there's a news report as if this thing was just stolen.

My impression was that the theft itself was relatively recent (a couple of weeks) but Artemis Sr. and Beechwood had been working together before that. I guess Holly had only been working against this for a couple of weeks?

Edited by Menor
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A complete and utter disaster in every way. I have never read the book series this is based on but I feel so bad for all the fans of this series who were wanting a great adaptation, I honestly feel very offended about something I have absolutely no emotional connection to. Everything in this feels so cobbled together and rushed. The worldbuilding and the plot are so vaguely defined and unengaging, completely failing to give us an ounce of reason to give a damn about anything that's happening on-screen. The characters are all wooden boards and manages to waste the talents of its veteran actors Colin Farrell and Judi Dench. Don't even get me started on Josh Gad's character or his performance. 

 

Disney really got lucky with the timing of this film's release, real-life circumstances and all, because if this was actually released in theaters, it would've mega-tanked HARD. So I guess they can kinda wipe the sweat off their brows with this one. Still, this film is an embarrassment and the studio clearly understood that when they decided to dump this on Disney+. It has been such a long time since I've seen a film that's left me feeling this mad that I wasted my time watching it. For that, it absolutely deserves an:

 

F

Edited by Rorschach
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This film disappointed me and left me wondering if we can predict which films will be bad based on their getting released on streaming services rather than wait for a theatrical release. the lesser products have come out and make me want to risk exposure just to see a good film theatrically. Keep in mind, that I have not read the books. 

 

In the books we have this kid who is a great thief, but in this film he steals nothing, He plays the unsuspecting innocent who is thrust into a world of fantasy and danger who barely makes it through. We see him dance around the principal at school but we do not really see him in the community or with other kids. I can only sense he is cool by his fashion and the amount of exposition given to tell me how genius he is. Better writing would show it. 

 

My biggest gripe is that this film is closed and contained. No one but the three humans. the fairy, and the one tall dwarf who are in the secluded household know about and deal with magic and creatures. Nothing escapes to the town, and the fairies can erase memory from the one boater. This limits the jeopardy that we have. not much is at stake, except the dad/criminal who we never get to know, they did a better job developing Judy Dench's character arc, and I cared more about whether she can keep her job and contain the looming disaster. That was the highlight of the film. The eat dirt and... dispel dirt sequence was the,,, low point, and convinced me that this film was not going to get better. At least I was prepared.

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It turns out that all the speculation about the quality of Artemis Fowl in lights of its long development history, its troubled production, and its release date shifts was more than justified. The film, as it exists on the Disney+ platform, is a mess that rarely makes much sense nor gives viewers many compelling reasons to care about any of the events occurring onscreen. The development of characters and themes is minimal and mostly fails to get viewers invested in the setting. The problems begin with the titular character, a boy genius so irritatingly smug that one couldn’t be blamed for hoping someone will punch him in the face. His character traits basically boil down to being a genius who is really good at just about everything; while this decision is not bad unto itself – after all, a villain protagonist could make for an interesting film – the filmmakers bungle it because they cannot quite decide whether they are okay with committing to such an unsympathetic protagonist. As such, we’re left with an unlikable protagonist whose growth over the course of the film feels entirely plot-driven. What’s more, the plot is also so uninteresting that it requires a tacked-on framing device to constantly explain what the stakes are supposed to be. The acting mostly matches the dullness of the script (and it’s easy to forget that numerous characters and plot threads even exist for significant stretches of the running time), though I have to cut Josh Gad some slack for at least trying to do something with a character who feels like an attempt to craft a weird cross between Hagrid and the Jason Momoa Aquaman. It’s not a good performance, but at least it’s weird and committed enough that stands out when very little else does, and it’s one of precious few things in front of the camera where anyone appears to be demonstrating noticeable effort. There are some competently directed scenes that hint at what Kenneth Branagh could have done with significantly better material, and Patrick Doyle also does reliably nice work on the original score. Taken as a whole, though, Artemis Fowl is an aggressively uninteresting misfire.
 

D+

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On 6/18/2020 at 5:41 PM, Kravetz said:

We see him dance around the principal at school but we do not really see him in the community or with other kids.

 

One of the very few accurate parts of the book; He doesn't interact with another child his own age until about book 5.

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