‘Artemis Fowl’ lays an egg

Posted on June 19, 2020

By MARK VIOLA

I’ve never read the “Artemis Fowl” books written by Eoin Colfer, and I knew next to nothing about them before watching the new film adaptation directed by Kenneth Branagh (“Thor”). The only thing I really knew was that fans of the books were apparently outraged when the first trailer was released because of the perceived changes made to both the story and the main character, 10-year-old Artemis Fowl (played by Ferdia Shaw).

I tried my best to ignore that going into the movie, because while fans might not like the end product, a good movie can result from filmmakers straying well away from the source material. The “How to Train Your Dragon” films, making up one of my favorite trilogies of all time, bear little resemblance to the books upon which they were based. Also, while I was not a fan myself of the many changes made to the “Ready Player One” adaptation, I can begrudgingly admit the movie stands well on its own, even if many of my favorite moments in the book never made it to the screen.

All that being said, it didn’t take long for me to realize that “Artemis Fowl” was more than just a bad adaptation. It’s a bad movie. Even before I started the film, I noticed that it is only 95 minutes long. Most adaptations struggle to fit into a full two hours or more, so that had me worried from the onset. Having not read the books myself, I looked it up after the fact and discovered that the story told in the movie is a bit of a mash-up from tales told in the first two books.

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