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artemis fowl and whatever the fuck
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.
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.
Before I launch in a disappointed rant, I have to say there are a few things I really enjoyed about the movie, which is largely about visuals.
The Lower Elements look like they're actually some outer space market thing from Guardians of the Galaxy more than undergrownd, but I appreciated the fact that while it was distinctly sci-fi looking it was also colorful and patterned in a way that said magic instead of strict, serious science. I really liked the LEP uniforms and Foaly's station, too. The Fowls' mansion i sthe right mix of old and new with a bit of eccentricity thrown in for flavour, the wedding in Italy was ... hilariously tidy, but it was charming and well researched.
The cast was well chosen, imho, even where they did changes from the original material: Judi Dench as Commander Root was great, though I wish she had more screentime and an actual script to work with; Foaly's design was stylish as hell.
The idea of making Mulch Diggums a 'giant dwarf' tickled me pink, especially bc in my mind it went very well with Captain Holly Short being an inch shorter than average (which is a lot for a fairy!), but they never took the time to play with it because this script is a fucking mess, i swear to god. It also made me laugh that they made him so much more handsome than he's supposed to be—especially because they didn't shy away from the unhinged-jaw grossness and I was so happy about that.
I was also very happy with the casting choices for Butler and Juliet, until I realized they turned the pair of ultra-specialized warriors-turned-bodyguards into... basic staff. They're still ultra-specialized on paper, but aside from a couple very short moments we don't get to actually see it, so it doesn't count in my book.
TLDR: it's what i call a very good footage bank, which is to say that if you take the movie and cut it up to death maybe you can make a good fanvid out of it.
the premises
The whole appeal of book!artemis is that he starts out as this absolute devil of a child who is terrifyingly smart. Since his dad has gone missing and his mom lost her mind to grief, he decided to take over the family's business, which happens to be an ex-criminal empire. He's the one to first hear a rumour about the fair folk being real; he's the one to first track down a member of the fae (an addict who ends up selling priceless information in exchange for a fast-rehab injection of Artemis' formulation), and it looks like his goal is simply to rob them blind to replenish the family fund. Because first and foremost he's a thief. That's what he does; why looking for the pot at the end of the rainbow when you can get a leprechaun to bring it to you?
Of course deep down he's still a kid, who just wants his mom to be okay and his dad to be proud of him, but don't tell.
Movie!Artemis is a rich, smart, mouthy kid whose dad is suspected to be a thief; Artemis I is actually a Good Person who steals fae artefacts in order to keep them safe from the human world, but Artemis II doesn't know that; he just thinks his dad is a fairy folk nerd who likes quizzing him about fair folk facts. His "descent into evil" starts when Artemis I is kidnapped: the villain rings Artemis II at home to tell him that they're gonna give his dad the chop if he doesn't give them the MacGuffin, a fae artefact with unspecified phenomenal cosmic powers; so Artemis decides to use his father's research (which he now can access thanks to Butler) so he can blackmail the rest of the fae into giving it to him (because he doesn't know that his father hid the goddamn thing in the house).
Of course he then finds out that the fairy he kidnapped is actually his dad's buddy's daughter so they become friends, they activate the MacGuffin and they use it to teleport Artemis I back home, so the villain's plan is foiled and the world is safe!
Yeah, I don't know, either.
TLDR: they took a story about greed and the balance between good and evil and made it about... I'm not sure, actually. About saving the world with the power of friendship, I guess?
the characters
and other miscellaneous details
Artemis II is just not believeable. You can't just say "I'm a criminal mastermind" and expect me to believe it especially if you don't have the time to prove it. He's just a mouthy, probably smarter-than-average kid who was thrusted in a Situation that he barely manages. Book!Artemis plays a game where he's always four steps ahead; he doesn't trust anyone but Butler; he's arrogant and goes out of his way to let other people believe he's more selfish than he actually is. Movie!Artemis' coolest feature is a well-tailored tiny black suit and matching sunglasses. I'm also bothered by the fact that they made him athletic; book!Artemis is a lanky nerd who can barely skip the rope, that's why he needs Butler and Juliet to help him. I refuse to call Butler by his name: nobody's supposed to know his name.
The fact that they opted to show Artemis I rather than Artemis' mother bothers me — but why deal with a mentally ill woman when you can overlay a completely different personality over a man that is supposed to be out of the picture? Movie!Artemis I's relationship with Artemis II is very simplified: it's a normal father/son bond based on love and fairy folklore. His personality is established off screen by a heist-plot that sounded genuinely more interesting than whatever they ended up pulling on screen, and he spends most of the time trapped in the darkness waiting to be rescued.
I'm so offended on behalf of Opal Koboi. In the books she's a worthy rival of Artemis' intellect, with her convoluted plots and complex evil schemes. It hurts seeing her flattened into a generic villainous pancake with an itch for world domination, which is why she wanted the MacGuffin—sorry, the Aculos.
I'm so mad about this thing. The Aculos is probably inspired by the regular-ass acorn book!Captain Short uses to replenish her magical power during the stake-out, and I'm still mad over the fact that it was the force that brought the whole plot together, because it's so boring. It's the reason Artemis I gets in trouble, the reason Artemis II blackmails LEP, and indirectly it's the reason why Holly and Artemis become friends - more about that in a minute.
the pacing
not to mention the non-existent relationships
I don't know what about the first book made them think "mmm there's not enough material to make a movie out of this", but I'll pretend it's because there's a lot of (apparent) idle-time, in a stake-out based plot. People sit around and scheme and plot and try to outsmart each other, and maybe they thought it wasn't interesting enough for a movie that was supposed to be an action movie for children.
What possessed them to cram so much crap in such a short time is beyond me. As it is, the first half of the movie has material from the first and second book, with a bunch of additions to make it more 'origin-story' like, and the second half is a perfunctory wrap of all the plot-lines that were left hanging. I'm going to pretend that Mulch doing that narrator thing doesn't exist, because it's just too terrible for words.
The result is that everything feels rushed and barely touched upon. There's no time to make us believe that Artemis is smart and cunning, so they had him say "im a criminal mastermind" out loud; there's no time to let Artemis and Holly develop a spontaneous bond, so the proxy of their fathers being allies will have to do; there's no time to explain why Opal is bad, so there's a fading to black where they go and kick her ass off screen. That's shoddy writing and it makes me want to scream.
There's a reason show, don't tell is one of the rules of writing, you know.
I wanted to write a structured thing, but the more I wrote about it the more disappointed I got, so I'm just leaving it as it is.
The bottom line here is that while I enjoyed a lot of things as I was watching it, the poor writing and pacing frustrated me too much for me to let it slide.
I feel confused and bitter; it makes me wonder if the work around the production of mainstream movies is really as soulless as the industry makes me believe sometimes, where deadlines are more important than quality, and where keeping the production company happy is more important than doing justice to the source material.
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So, yes, give me mini-series over movies every time.
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Same reason I'm glad they got rid of the telepathy gimmick in the maze runner, tbh. THAT'S an adaptation choice I'm really glad they did, even if it's pretty important plot-wise.
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