6 Years Ago, Disney Gave Us An Awful Adaptation Of A Beloved Fantasy Book Series

The movie version of Irish author Eoin Colfer's novel "Artemis Fowl" was always cursed. Even before the book was published in April 2001, its film rights were scooped up by Miramax's Bob Weinstein and his convicted sex predator brother Harvey. The movie adaptation then spent some two decades trudging towards the finish line, with Disney getting involved in 2013. All the while, Colfer expanded his original tome into a series of beloved novels centered on the titular character. And make no mistake, Artemis Fowl II was a unique specimen among kids' fantasy literature protagonists from that era. Where his peers tended to be goody two-shoes, Colfer's young Irishman was a crafty, crooked wunderkind descended from a long line of lawbreakers.

To be clear, the issue with Disney's "Artemis Fowl" movie isn't that it drops the whole "preteen criminal virtuoso" aspect. It's that it turns Artemis Fowl II (Ferdia Shaw, who's quite blameless in all this) into a mostly personality-free pseudo-anti-hero whose ancestors secretly devoted their lives to collecting items that prove magical beings exist. The way the film bends over backwards to re-imagine the Fowl criminal empire from Colfer's source novels as a bunch of amateur magic anthropologists is also indicative of its slapdash world-building in general. Frustratingly, for all of the lore "Artemis Fowl" frantically hurls at the wall, little of it is given the room it needs to breathe and offer a satisfying storytelling experience.

That's not just me being a grumpy-pants, either. When the film was eventually dumped directly onto Disney+ in June 2020, /Film's "Artemis Fowl" review described it as "an astounding failure as an adaptation and as an entertaining movie." That sentiment was echoed by virtually everyone else who watched it at the time, and that consensus really hasn't softened since then.

Disney's "Artemis Fowl" sees Artemis II and his faithful bodyguard/servant, Domovoi "Dom" Butler (Nonso Anozie), attempting to recover a magic MacGuffin (the Aculos) in order to rescue Colin Farrell's Artemis I and foil a sinister, magical individual hell-bent on destroying humanity. Along the way, they're either aided or slowed down by the citizens of the underground magical realm of Haven City, including outsider fairy cop Holly Short (Lara McDonnell), Holly's hard-lined boss Julius Root (Judi Dench), and roguish dwarf thief Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad).

In truth, though, that summary makes "Artemis Fowl" sound more coherent than it is. Could its muddled narrative be the result of all the different scripts the project went through? Or did Disney realize this thing wasn't working and shave it down to a hurried 93 minutes in post-production? Either way, there's a reason the film includes an otherwise pointless framing storyline where Mulch delivers exhausting exposition to an unseen British Intelligence officer about what's even happening in any given scene. "Artemis Fowl" is a real tonal patchwork as well, clumsily juxtaposing juvenile fantasy hijinks with earnest drama.

I'm only now mentioning that "Artemis Fowl" is directed by Sir Kenneth Branagh. (It has credited writers, naturally, but who knows how much of their handiwork even wound up on-screen.) You'd think this film would at least look good with the lauded actor/director calling the shots, but it's a curiously visually uninvolving affair beset by hectic set pieces and odd camera shots. It's a shame, too, as you get the sense Branagh is trying to pay his respects to his and the Fowls' homeland of Ireland here (something he'd do to way better effect with 2021's Oscar-winning "Belfast").

What else is there to say? Disney did you dirty, Artemis II.