Artemis Fowl: What Did You Think of the Film?

Hi all my Bookworms!

My name is Chiara and I am a Bookworm.

How are you all?

I know Monday is a bit of a tradition round here. I normally do A Bookworm NOT in Paris but I wanted to do something different at the moment, especially because my life is a bit boring at the moment.

If you’ve not guessed from the title, today I am talking about Artemis Fowl. The film was released on Disney+ on Friday and I couldn’t wait to watch it. As soon as I got up and had my breakfast I plonked myself down in front of the tv and watched the film through.

Anyone who is a regular here that book to film/tv aren’t really my thing. They always manage to ruin it some how. But I actually didn’t dislike the film. That was a lot of double negation. What I’m trying to say is it wasn’t half bad.

I’m going to warn you now that if you haven’t read the book or watched the film there may be a few small spoilers, but I’ll try to make it as spoiler free as possible. Hopefully.

First of all lets talk about the book, where inspiration for the film came from.

I read the first book in my mid teens, actually I listen to the audiobooks as I walked to school every morning over a period of weeks. I loved the first book but for some reason I didn’t continue much further with the series. I definitely started the second book but whether I finished it … I honestly can’t remember. About a year ago now I decided to make my way through the series and actually finish it. I’m up to book five at the moment and I haven’t been disappointed by any of the books yet.

When I first found out about the film I was so excited my only hope being that they wouldn’t ruin it.

Did they ruin it? No? I’m not sure.

It isn’t the same story … yet it is. It is in some sort of twilight zone where it is the story that Eoin Colfer wrote and it isn’t.

I’ve read an article on Polygon.com that say that Colfer is happy with the changes that were made and that he endorses them. But for me changes have been made that affect the time line of the series and the way that you view that characters.

Butler, or as he is called in the film, Domovoy, Dom for short, is called by his first name which Artemis doesn’t even know in the first book. It isn’t until Butler is in mortal danger that he tells him. Juliet Butler, who was amazing by the way though I really should have had more screen time, is not his niece but his sister. Commander Root, who is played by the AMAZING Dame Judi Dench, is a traditionally male character in the book, and though it isn’t clear what gender Dench is playing, her acting lacks some of the craziness and hotheadedness that Root has in the book.

Holly Short, who is my favourite character in the series, to me seems a little green, a little wet behind the ears. I know that she is only 84, but at that age in the book she is the first female officer in LEP history and shows the maturity of an elf twice her age. It was pretty obvious that officer Short had never been in the shoots before and had definitely never been top-side. Where as in the books fairies go top side all the time, they have to because of the ritual.

That is another important thing they missed. The fairy book. In the film Artemis learns all about the People from his father. But in the book Artemis is self taught and what he doesn’t know he learns from the Book. I won’t tell you too much about the Book in the hopes that you’ll read Artemis Fowl and learn all this for yourself.

Which I suppose brings me back to Artemis. I love the young lad who played Artemis, Ferdia Shaw. He is very talented and I think we shall see a lot of him in the future. However I think the character missed something. I think it is more in the script than Shaw’s acting and mostly that he wasn’t wrote smart enough. The scene with the psychologist gave a hint of just how smart Artemis is but the film just touched the surface of his intelligence.

I’ve tried with this list not to talk about things that would have been restricted by what film can do. I know there are some restriction when it comes to movie magic but I didn’t see many of them. Mulch was absolutely my favourite character. With every book Mulch seems to reveal more skills and powers and while we saw a lot of them in the film, they were so amazing. The special effects were just … brilliant.

Also, can I just say how amazing Josh Gad is? I had no idea he was going to be in the film until I was watching it and he is perfect as Mulch.

Other things that I enjoyed from the film … the technology. The books were first published in 2001 and in terms of technology the world has come a long way, we may have even caught up with the fairy world and now they need to take a jump forward so that they seem the advanced people that they were in the book.

Overall, this film is worth the watch. It’s not the book, but were we really expecting it to be? I will be watching this many times in the hopes that they do film two. Does anyone know when that is coming out? Please, Disney, give us film two.