artemis fowl and whatever the fuck

"I swear I won't be mad about Artemis Fowl", they said, ranting about Artemis Fowl.

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Before you start reading: this is a review of Artemis Fowl (2020) directed by Kenneth Branagh

the good: they got the visuals right, the cast was amazing, there were a few clever additions that I really loved and a few changes I didn't mind.

the bad: the pacing was a mess, the premise was a mess, Artemis was mischaracterized and basically rendered unrecognizable.

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Movies adapted from books are notorious for being, more often than not, a miss. Myself, I spent the best time of my teenage years joyfully shredding through movie adaptations of my favourite books, judging and criticizing and pointing out all the passages where they differentiated from the original text-- at the time it seemed an absolute sin. Why make it in a movie at all, if you weren't going to keep 'the good bits'?

Then I grew up and I started studying screenwriting storytelling. Turns out that writing a script is pretty fucking hard. Turns out that adaptation is not only hard but, just like translation, is also very much not an exact science. Prose and script are as similar languages as english and japanese, and trying to make a one-to-one transfer is not going to work. As much as I suffered to admit it, you can't keep everything, so you have to make a choice. The fans of the book are gonna gut you anyway.

After years spent comparing the movies and their book counterparts, I feel like a good adaptation should keep at the very least the same feel of the origin material; on top of that it should have the same characters, the same themes, and the same overall plot. Sometimes adjustments are necessary because maybe there's too much stuff going on, or because it might be hard to get across on screen, or because the book is garbage but the concept is too good not to try and expand on it (and even then, good luck trying to make something that doesn't suck).

Artemis Fowl (2020) is not a good adaptation.

Read my spoiler-free review on letterboxd.

( Full spoiler-y, rambly review )