Spoilers Alert:
After endless back and forth, countless postponements and the death knell caused by the Corona crisis, this is Disney’s latest big-budget project ARTEMIS FOWL can be seen on the streaming service Disney+ from this week. Given the quality, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have ever planned to go to the cinema. We reveal why in our review.
Back in the human world…
The third weak point is probably the biggest: the script. On the basis of this, numerous narrative omissions open up, of which it is difficult to say in retrospect whether they were already present in the script or only came about in post-production. When Artemis learns that there is a secret world of elves underground, in the next scene he moves through that world so confidently that you would think he was at home here. No amazement, no irritation and, above all, no preparation for the dangerous mission. It’s like a whole half hour is missing. Just one of many examples that give the impression that “Artemis Fowl” was knitted with a very hot needle (hard to imagine given a budget of 125 million US dollars). To compensate for these “show don’t tell” failures, the makers choose the cheapest possible route and rely on a lot of explanatory dialogue and a narrator (played by Josh Gad) who chews the audience through the plot until they just swallow it must. It doesn’t help that some of the computer effects – especially the one in which time is frozen and the still water masses form an intoxicating backdrop in the truest sense of the word – are sometimes quite passable. There isn’t too much time to marvel, because Artemis literally races through the plot; No wonder if the moments for a short breather have apparently all fallen victim to the scissors.
“The third weak point is probably the biggest: the script. Because on this basis, numerous narrative omissions open up, which in retrospect it is difficult to say whether they were already present in the script or only arose during post-production.”
What big names like Judi Dench (“Secret of a Life”) or Colin Farrell (“Dumbo”) What motivated him to take part in a film like “Artemis Fowl” cannot be explained by the complexity of the characters. While Dench speaks in a Batman-like voice most of the time and is completely free in the last third, Farrell is hardly visible. The film urgently needs acting substance, which main actor Ferdia Shaw simply cannot (yet) provide. But as frustrating as it sounds: “Artemis Fowl” is simply a disaster on every level. And despite the cliffhanger, there is unlikely to be a second part.
Conclusion: That’s probably not going to happen with the next big youth fantasy hit: The big-budget fantasy film “Artemis Fowl,” now released on Disney+, is just a narratively incomplete series of well-known genre motifs through which an unsympathetic main character walks.
“Artemis Fowl” will be available to stream on Disney+ starting August 14th.
