Artemis Fowl, the book, was a favorite of mine when I was younger. It turned into an 8-part series that I recently finished reading (took me a while to track down the final books) and set up a magical world to throw myself into – similar to the way that Harry Potter had done, but with different enough rules to adhere to and unique characters that easily stand out with each of their own achievements and development.
Artemis Fowl, the movie, throws it all out the window. I don’t think I’ve ever hate-watched something before, but if I had to say that I’ve done it with a film this would easily take that place. I personally rank it worse than The Last Airbender, a movie that M. Night Shyamalan botched so much that fans of the original TV series it was based on claim that there is no film adaptation.
This adaptation, however… hoo boy. I don’t know what Kenneth Branaugh’s vision for this was meant to be, or why Eoin Colfer gave his blessing for it, but even within the first five minutes of the film it disregards so much from the source material. I’ll most likely write up a full review of it later because this is something I’d been hopeful about for years – even in the first book, published nearly twenty years ago, there was a promise of a movie. With how well Harry Potter had done, of course a great story like this can be successful on the big screen! Right?
…right?
Marshall's Matters 