User reviews

Watching Artemis Fowl is like listening to someone read a complicated instruction manual at a very quick pace, without pausing to allow for questions or reflection. I get that they had to cram a lot of story into one 90-minute movie, but it just doesn't make any sense. Artemis is unlikeable, Mulch Diggums is annoying, I felt embarrassed for Dame Judi Dench, and the rest of the cast is forgettable. If you're interested in this story, skip the movie and read the books.

This movie seems like it was written by someone who read the Wikipedia for this book series but never actually picked up the books. When making a movie based on a book, there are liberties that have to be taken because some things can't translate from the book and some effects (like the size of the fairies) are a hard to produce without costly CGI. However this movie doesn't seem to care about using CGI, and even uses it effectively but uses it in all the wrong places. The biggest issue with this movie is not the complete changing of story line but the betrayal of every single character's base traits for what appears to be no real reason. If you never read the books, this movie is passable, but if you're a fan of the series, prepared to see a torpedoing of all your beloved characters.

Never read the books so im not judging as an adaptation, but that was pretty bad. Lazy use of a narrator, tons of bad expodumping, and pretty boring characters. No emotional moments because I just genuinely didnt care about the characters. left a bad taste in my mouth /:

This movie succeeds in being bad for those who haven't read the books, like me, and especially for those who have, like my wife. We crawled to the finish line of this movie, which we couldn't wait to be over. I was so lost. And why is everyone talking like their throat itches? And what does Artemis Fowl ACTUALLY do?!

Truly an awful film. Scraps literally all the charm and myth of the book and misses every mark that would be necessary for even a decent film. The tone is confused, the scene direction is 10/10 for cringe. All those years of Shakespearean study and practice was a waste of time Kennith? Clearly. Packed with all the muddled and addled virtue signalling nonsense that you could ever need. It not only defuses any sincerity about the characters but also manages to destroy any possible tension. We seem to be in a place in film making where it is taboo and forbidden for anyone to represent negative qualities of any kind. Everyone is good and nice to each other except for characters hidden in cloaks or the colonial British man.

Josh Gads narration is not only entirely unnecessary but delivered like a high school students first assessment project.

Holly is wrecked. Root is wrecked. Foaley is nothing. Mulch is intolerable. Butler is wrecked. Juliet is nothing.

0 tension. 0 nuance. 0 technique.

It may be the worst adaption of a book I've ever seen. Definitely at least in the top 5.

If Disney put half the effort into the movie as they did into making a trailer and promotion, Artemis Fowl might have been only horrible instead of nauseatingly unwatchable. Thanks to the other 1 star reviews I will be reading the books so I can understand exactly how badly they dropped the ball. My kids and I haven't been this disappointed since the Last Airbender movie M. Night butchered.

I felt nauseous while watching it. I want a personal apology from the frozen head of Walt Disney.

I dit not ever hear about this story, if you walk in to the movie with a fresh mind it is fun to watch.

Before I watch this movie I had heard people say it was pretty bad but I knew it was based on a book so I thought people may have hated it because it didn't live up to it. This isn't the case it is just a bad movie.

It is so boring and like aimless. To top that off it is also really nonsensical and confusing. I don't feel like I watched the movie because I couldn't tell you anything about it, it's just like a blur.

The acting was pretty bad and I don't know why but when I was watching it I just got this like early 2000s vibe from it and I don't know why. Like I think this would have done better if it was made then. It just had that type of feel.

The writing was also pretty bad too. It is never good when a movie doesn't make you want to read the book it's based on.

So skip it it's pretty bad

The story line is good. As an adult there are flaws, however all of my 6 children enjoyed the movie. They could have embellished and drew out the story line a little better but we still enjoyed it as a family. (Ages 10-16 children)

It's a movie targeted at children. My 12 year old really enjoyed it and to be honest I enjoyed watching it with him.

Fans of the books will be immensely disappointed as this movie changes everything, and not in a good way (think a wrinkle in time, percy jackson, or mortal engines). If you're going to rewrite the plot, it should at least be entertaining and make sense.

However, not only is this a bad adaptation, it is also a bad movie in general. You're not going to attract any new fans by pumping 90% of your budget into CGI, and then glossing over your characters and screenplay. Absolutely no one is going to say "I liked this movie, now let me check out the books."

It used to mean something when you saw the disney castle at the beginning of a movie. Now it just means the movie you are about to see is going to be a disaster.

This movie is the definiton of money grab. They took the name Artimis Fowl and the base idea from the books and threw everything else out. This movie is garbage.

You ever watch a movie and then realise that the writes think they are clever but actually they are not?

It's one of those moments in this movie where they are not even trying to write intelligent dialog, it's meaningless scenes that are pretending to be meaningful.

If this is what Disney is producing now you might as well give up on them. I canceled my Disney plus subscription after watching this, because if they are promoting this as being "good" then there is no trust left in Disney.

Want to watch something good from Disney? Go back at least 5-10 years before the rot set in.

It's actually been a long time since reading the book series, but from retrospect they were certainly better than this film version. Love Disney and Disney+ has been a godsend recently and watched regularly actually, one of many reasons as to why my reviewing here has slowed down. Kenneth Branagh is a gifted director, absolutely love his Shakespeare adaptations with 'Much Ado About Nothing' being a personal favourite (though others will prefer the also great 'Hamlet' and 'Henry V'). Love Judi Dench as an actress too.

'Artemis Fowl' was a real disappointment. As an adaptation it's an abomination, one of the worst book to film adaptations there is in existence. Am not kidding here. It fares even worse on its own terms, despite what those that have defended the film say some that have hated the film have not read the books and saw it as fans of Branagh and Dench, my parents being among those people. Almost nothing works and Branagh has never been this uninterested in his directing in what is easily his worst film (those that disliked 'Murder on the Orient Express', didn't care for that myself while not hating it, will appreciate that film better after seeing this).

The least bad asset is actually the music score, which is actually beautiful to listen to, authentically Irish and lilting. Sadly it was one of those scores that were pleasant enough on their own but failed to fit within the film, this score sounded like it belonged somewhere else. The scenery also wasn't bad in parts but the photography generally is rushed looking and some of the images thanks to some very disjointed editing and garish lighting are quite ugly so that was wasted too. Any special effects are afterthought-looking.

Moving on further onto the criticisms, the acting is really not good. Ferdia Shaw is monotone and charisma-free throughout. Lara McDonnell has more perkiness but the character is very underwritten and bland on the whole. Colin Farrell is completely wasted. Josh Gad tries too hard is gets very annoying after a while, actually thought he didn't blend very well with everything else. You know something is wrong when Dench gives the least bad performance and still manages to give one of her worst performances, that affected accent and voice was not needed and she doesn't look engaged at times. At least she showed some signs of having command over her meagre material.

Branagh was clearly not interested in the material, as his direction throughout is uncharacteristically indifferent and phoned in. One would not think that he is a great Shakespearean director, and he did prove with his wonderful 'Cinderella' that he could do non-Shakespeare too, as this is quite inept. The target audience also felt confused, my mother was very unsure at who 'Artemis Fowl' was aimed at, children will find it hard to follow and it is too dull for adults. Even teens, the main target audience of the book series, will question the target audience.

Script is stilted and is too exposition-heavy (apparent right from the beginning with an over-explanatory narration), a lot of the film screeching to a deadening halt in the more talky sections and there are a lot of those. The storytelling is incredibly thin and not does it feel like a hodge podge of cobbled togther ideas it is all executed in a dull fashion and with little coherence, literally only one event happens. There is one action show-piece pretty much with a troll very late on but even that doesn't thrill and even the troll doesn't look that good. There is no character development whatsoever, nobody is given time to breathe, the villain is a non-entity and Artemis himself is practically useless. What little there is of the action is sluggish, incoherently edited and the sense of danger just isn't there. To cap it all off, the ending was a completely abrupt anti-climax.

In summary, very poor. 2/10

I was wishing for a Artemis Fowl movie long before there were plans on making them... I could picture all the books turned into great movies, in which you see the characters develop and grow. When I learned that Disney took on the challenge to make a movie adaptation, I held my breath. They wouldn't turn this into a disaster, now would they? Yup...they did... What a dissapointment.

As soon as I saw Artemis Fowl as an insecure, dependant boy who is nothing at all like the criminal, cold, steady, determined, witty mastermind in the books I felt so let down! He even surfs in the movie? Artemis would never turn to sports. Disney just had to make the main character a likeable weak little boy... terrible. This movie is nothing at all compared to the terrific books written by Eoin Colfer! There has not been looked at the story at all.

Shame on you, Disney.

We made my 7 year old to finish the book before we watched the movie. Turns out it didn't make a difference. About 5 mins in he turns to me and says "but this didn't happen in the book!"

Aside from the complete disrespect to the source material, the film was just awful. My wife turned to me at the end and said "that was freakin terrible."

I felt nothing for the characters, the story was jittery and Artemis Fowl did nothing. Josh Gad narrates (way too much) the opening and tells us how amazing and dangerous Artemis (the son) is ... we never see that. Artemis' parting shot "I'm a criminal mastermind." {everyone watching the movie} ahhhh how????

The villain of the movie also did nothing, showed no motive and gave no reason to care why the Fowl's would come after them in a sequel (pray there is not one!)

I honestly don't know what else to say about this. How did they go so wrong?

I enjoyed watching this, unfamiliar with the story so all new to me. Something a bit different that kept me entertained, I really don't understand all the severely negative reviews. The bad thing that stands out is josh gad, very poorly cast with a long list of people that would've been a better fit. His acting is seriously lacking.

Artemis Fowl is a complete disaster right from the start. A hectic and frustrating 94 minute movie with no emotions, weak CGI and an incoherent screenplay. It's awkwardly staged, with rusty dialogues that is unexplainable and unacceptable.

A movie made out of a long series of books, Artemis Fowl is bland and incoherent, with paper-thin character development, unimaginative world building, and an awful story telling. Kindly skip this and watch some old Disney classics instead.

My Rating : 0.5/5

Action, adventure, suspense. I really liked it. It's a great family film, but you don't necessarily need kids to enjoy it.

If you are expecting it to be true to the books then you will be disappointed. But take the basic premise of fairies and Artemis Fowl a genius, then if is entertaining movie.

The story was all written out for you, this day in age it really shouldn't be that difficult to take a fantasy story such as this and adapt it to the big screen. So many creative libraries were taken with this story, you are basically telling a different story. Might as well have changed the title too.

As an enthusiastic reader, I devoured the book of Artemis Fowl. I loved the detail, the dramatic plot and the criminal storyline. I was so excited to hear there was a film version of it and had high hopes. I was very very very disappointed. Not only did they seem to disregard most of the detail and story from the book, they took everything about what makes the storyline so clever, and dumbed it down to the very simple basics. I forgot it was based on the book until they mentioned one of the characters names. It honestly felt like they had robbed the author of the title, the characters, and left the rest. I feel so sorry for the author of the book.

I've been a fan of Artemis Fowl for years. When I saw the trailer, I was, of course, furious. My brother, another fan, watched the whole film, while I didn't get very far. He said it got worse. I believed him and only wasted 9 minutes and 6 seconds of my life. In less than ten minutes there are numerous errors. For example, Artemis doesn't surf. The therapy scene is from the second book. That Mulch stuff? Nope. From my understanding, it would also be a bad movie on its own, without the shame of being a shoddy adaptation.