Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Canada continues to
be closed to the Americans… so let us talk about ‘Artemis Fowl’ the movie
instead. It sucks, and I could tell that it would suck from the trailer way
back when – and that is a good point to start.
For a Disney film, ‘Artemis Fowl 2020’ took about two
decades to come to the streaming services of Disney+, and it shows. The plot
has nothing to very little in common with the source material – the initial two
novels of the series, (which numbers 8 in total, apparently). In the novels,
the titular character begins certainly not as a hero, but as an anti-hero going
on full villain in the ‘James Bond’ style, complete with being the latest in a
long lineage of anti-heroes/villains, and the ‘Artemis Fowl’ novel series are
about him becoming a better person in the process of befriending Holly Short
and her cohorts. In ‘Artemis Fowl’ the movie we have nothing of the sort; this
movie of Artemis Fowl is bland and featureless, or perhaps – generic. He is
just another face in the crowd – really.
This brings us to his family. In the novels, Artemis Fowl
does have a father, who disappears, and whom Artemis gets back – eventually,
but he also has a mother, who becomes somewhat mentally disturbed after her
husband vanishes, and her mental recovery is an important part of the novels’
plot too. Here, she is flat-out missing – either because it is a ‘common Disney
twist’, (cough AoS cough), or because no actress wanted that role, or because
her absence simplified this movie even further.
…No, really, the ‘Artemis Fowl’ 2020 film is simple – Opal Koboi,
the evil fairy, wants a McGuffin called the Aculus, (Oculus?), and Artemis Fowl
has to acquire it for her – or else. The rest of the fairy world gets involved,
and Dame Judy Bench got herself another crummy role – of Julius Root, who, I
believe, was a male in the novels and comics; yes, there were at least a couple
of ‘Artemis Fowl’ comic books as well. They were not too good themselves, in
particular, that version of Opal seemed to be almost handicapped – i.e., she
was constantly positioned in the fairy version of a wheelchair or something similar;
but I digress.
Or not, because of the fairy woman in white from the
trailer. Remember her? She transforms from old to young and floats into thin
air in the process in the trailer. This made her look to be rather important to
the overall movie plot, but in the actual movie? I do not remember her at all,
yet I wonder if she was supposed to be Opal, the movie’s version of a ‘seer’
from the first AF novel, (a fairy who fled from their world to the humans’
domain and did not handle it very well), some sort of a fusion between the two,
or an original character entirely. Instead, we got zilch from her – isn’t that
an ouch?..
Speaking of Opal, let us talk about Holly Short. In the
novels, she is an antagonist to Artemis, at least until Opal becomes the series’
main villain. Here, the two of them become friendly with each other right away…and
critics and reviewers are having issues with the fact that in the movie she’s a
WASP, while in the novels she is a POC instead. That is a reasonable point, and
the fact that Opal is played by a POC certainly does not help matters, but!
…But Opal is actually a non-entity in the movie; yes, she
has minions to do her dirty work for her, such as rebel against Julius Root, who
is apparently the fairy leader here, but…
…But this plotline gets hardly any development, and that is
the other ‘Artemis Fowl’ movie flaw – it is insipid and underdeveloped; it
promised plenty in the trailer, but nothing came out of it, no taste, no
substance, and very little style, as most of the film is about the fairies
trying to storm the Fowl mansion and fail… until Butler gets almost killed by a
troll and so Artemis has to negotiate to save his friend’s, servant’s, and
sidekick’s life.
…In the novel, none of that happened, and in fact, Butler
had defeated the troll very thoroughly, because he is an awesome warrior, and
trolls in the AF novel canon are more animalistic than sentient, unlike goblins,
for example. Yes, changing the original plot to suit a movie better is not
anything surprising, but the problem here is that the ‘Artemis Fowl’ movie is
bad – so bad, that POCs aren’t even calling out how Opal, and not just Holly,
got typecast in the film: they don’t want to be associated with ‘Artemis
Fowl-2020’ any more than they have to, and when that happens, you know that you
have a real stinker!..
…Well, this is it for ‘Artemis Fowl’ the movie, at least for
now. It is bad, it is GoT S8 level of bad, and while the odds were against it –
two decades in development, ouch! – it did not even try to fight the odds.
Pity. I will see you all soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment