The Artemis Fowl Movie: 4 Key Character Misjudgments –

In the lead up to its premiere, the expectation for Artemis Fowl was relatively low due to its underwhelming trailers and the comments coming from the filmmakers themselves. This was then exacerbated by the decision from Disney to premiere it straight onto streaming as opposed to releasing in cinemas. Unfortunately, it seems that the low expectations of awaiting audiences had underestimated how bad the movie would really be, with disappointed reviews and scathing critical reception galore.

The biggest issue seems to be a complete lack of trust from the filmmakers in the original source material, especially the concept of the main character Artemis being a villain. The original series was designed to introduce a character who commits terrible acts, and gradually grows in kindness, becoming a hero in the later novels, somewhat akin to Jaime Lannister in A Song of Ice and Fire.

It obviously worked, seeing as the overall series sold over 25 million copies, a similar amount to The Hunger Games trilogy at the point of its first film being released. Unfortunately, rather than taking advantage of a ready-made audience enticed by a villainous protagonist who relied on his intelligence, director Kenneth Branagh decided audiences wouldn’t like it. Instead, Branagh changed the focus on an Artemis who starts off as a hero and grows into a villain, or in his words, “like the Michael Corleone in The Godfather”, which he even fails at that.
But there are four missteps in particular that were made in relation to the characters that we shall mention below.

 

Artemis Fowl’s Physicality

An introduction to a character is always vital, as it sets the first impression and should instantly paint a picture of who that person is. In the books, Artemis is introduced alongside Butler being able to Sherlock Scan an undercover individual and trick a faerie to reveal her true identity, as well as give up her diary. These actions help depict Artemis as someone who notices details, able to make quick analytical breakdowns, and walks into every situation with a plan, removing the element of risk to protect himself.

In the film, he’s introduced surfing, a risky extreme sport that requires great coordination, despite the fact the character is supposed to be physically weak and reliant on his mental strength. This was an obvious attempt to make Artemis a more physical character, even though this ends up negating the importance of Butler, who is supposed to be Artemis’ protection. This aspect would continue in later action scenes, where both the faerie fight and the troll fight, two scenes meant to cement Butler as an absolute badass instead becomes a generic group fight where Artemis runs around wielding guns and skateboarding in the sun, turning the character into James Bond Jr.

The troll fight scene especially was a painful scene for a fan like myself to watch, as it was my favourite setpiece when reading the book as a child. In the book, Butler would get gored by the troll and die, with Holly using her healing powers to save him. Having learned from the attack, Butler would dress in a knight’s suit and beat the troll into a pulp using his mace and metal gloves, shocking Artemis, Holly, Foaly and L.E.P. (Lower Element Police), with it even being deemed a moment that if they hadn’t seen, they’d never have believed it. I loved that setpiece, and spent years growing up wanting to direct an adaptation specifically for that scene. It was the equivalent of Sam battling Shelob in Return of the King, or Aragorn killing the leader of the Uruk-Hai. It was a moment made for film, and the filmmakers even failed with this gift.

 

Angeline Fowl

In a moment early on that could have been easily missed due to the minimal amount of attention given, Angeline Fowl is revealed to have died, leaving Artemis’ father a widower. Undoubtedly a contrived decision to focus more on the relationship between Artemis and his father, as they wanted to get the most out of Colin Farrell. However, this lazy write-off of Artemis’ mother would actually undermine a major subplot from the first book that would gain importance in the third act.

With the disappearance of Artemis Fowl Sr in the first book actually lasting for over a year, Angeline suffers a mental breakdown, ending up bedridden in Fowl Manor, forcing Artemis to take a commanding role in his father’s criminal enterprise. During the siege itself, Angeline is actually hidden upstairs, which adds even more stakes to the overall story, as Artemis regularly has to make sure his mother is being cared for by Juliet in between his planning against the faeries.

But even more, it offers extra dimension to Artemis himself, as despite making cruel decisions against the faeries, his scenes with his mother helps humanise him as a twelve year old boy struggling on his own. These scenes offer subtler characterisations of Artemis in comparison to the film’s depiction of him, turning him into a generic vanilla protagonist instead. It culminates in Artemis succeeding in his hostage situation, being given a ransom from the L.E.P., which is basically a ton of gold.

Gaining that ton of gold is a simpler and much more suitable choice, as it would help Artemis fund the search for his father, but he ends up returning half to Holly in exchange for her healing Artemis’ mother. This leads to a heartfelt moment where Angeline Fowl is healed in time for Christmas Day, and leaves Holly curious about the human she thought was just a basic thief. What could have represented character development, plot options and offer development in future sequels (which look especially unlikely now) is instead unceremoniously swept under Branagh’s carpet.

Holly Short and Commander Root

One of the major arcs of Holly in the series is that when she is initially introduced, she had recently been promoted as the first ever female officer of the L.E.P. Because of this, Holly often has to deal with sexist attitudes from her fellow officers, as well as a temperamental relationship with her superior, Commander Julius Root. A cigar-smoking archetype of the angry police chief, Root’s habit of unfairly critiquing Short for lesser antics than her male counterparts is developed through the series, revealing his fear of any transgression by Holly making it impossible for more female officers in the future. This fraught relationship impacts many of their decisions, with Holly often overcompensating in an attempt to secure her position (such as going against instructions in Italy) and Root being overly restrictive on Holly’s decision making.

Judi Dench is unquestionably acting royalty, having previously been chosen for male-to-female genderswap roles (as M in James Bond) and helping to improve the overall dynamic of the character. However, the decision to cast Dench as a female rendition of Commander Root loses the original character dynamics between Holly and Root, and in essence, make the characters less interesting. Instead, the filmmakers decided to discard the subplot of sexism among the faerie kind, an element that would actually have resonated more nowadays than when the book was released in 2001, and implement a generic trope of Holly trying to clear her dead father’s name. In an ironic twist of fate, by adding more females to the L.E.P., the filmmakers actually neutered a major positive element of the series itself.

 

Artemis Fowl Sr

Undoubtedly the biggest change in the movie, Artemis Fowl Sr originally didn’t appear until the second novel, allowing the focus of the first book to be on Artemis and his mother. Not only was Angeline completely discarded from the adaptation, but Artemis Sr was brought much more to the forefront. This includes scenes where Artemis is taught the history of the faerie folk by his father, who is also saving major artifacts for the faerie folk.

This instantly causes a major loss for the main character, as it completely removes any form of motivation from him. Whereas the books had him finding out about the faerie folk by himself, travelling the world, and researching the language to translate it, the film eliminates all of this and basically hands all the information to him instead. This makes Artemis a passive protagonist, which is the worst type of protagonist, one who just has things happen to him and he reacts around it.

You can understand the studio’s decision to implement more scenes with Colin Farrell, because he is a tremendous actor who did some solid work in the film, but it has a negative impact on the overall development of Artemis himself. Instead of Artemis learning about the faerie folk on his own initiative and being proven right, his dad tells him everything. Whereas Artemis originally demonstrated his intelligence and planning by finding proof of their language and translating after research into all languages, his dad’s mate Beechwood had already done it. Artemis gets handed all the information by other people, including Butler, and it means Artemis isn’t able to demonstrate any initiative, intelligence, or planning. Quite possibly the biggest flaw in the making of the film.