Let’s talk about how badly the filmmakers102 behind the Artemis Fowl film misunderstood what makes the book – and in particular the title character, upon whom rests the entire weight and success of the endeavor – cool.
What sets the book version of the character apart from the film and just about every other YA protagonist is his unabashed villainy. He’s a genius, sure, but he’s also a thief. So the entire first book in the series is a heist that he sets up, and all the other characters are reacting to what he’s doing. It’s something more like Ocean’s Eleven than Harry Potter103.
But the movie character is scrambling to react to everyone around him. He claims to have plans for every situation and contingency plans for every challenge, but the pace is so frenetic and so distracted by unimportant characters and an abominable macguffin that there’s no opportunity to believe him. He’s not frightening or cold. He’s a well read preteen who’s given everything he needs to solve a mystery someone else set up for him.
In other words he is not distinct. Except for a passing preference for semi-extreme sports, which has no basis, no through-line, and no payoff. So, like everything else in the movie, flashy and unsatisfying.
102Though they could have been acting at the direction of the studio, my instinct is to blame the screenwriters, because if the script is garbage, it doesn’t matter how charismatically the film’s acted or beautifully it’s filmed or animated. I genuinely enjoyed Josh Gad’s performance, largely because of what he obviously added to the script that managed to remain in the final cut. And the young Lara McDonnell did a great job playing a fairy cop with the material given to her. It’s only a shame that what she was given – along with each of the other hundreds involved – was trash.
103Really a more apt comparison would be Die Hard, but if Die Hard had been about Hans Gruber and Hans Gruber was a middle schooler and the police trying to stop him were elves. See? Doesn’t that sound great?
And I’m not saying the book is perfect. But it’s at least entertaining.
Alex Diamond 