ARTEMIS FOWL Is 2020's Essential Trainwreck

Rating: 🚫🧚

(Author’s note: I mention Harry Potter a couple times in this piece, a spiritually defunct franchise thrust yet again into the spotlight not long after I penned this. Let me make my thoughts abundantly clear: fuck JK Rowling, fuck TERFs, and fuck Harry Potter. If you feel sympathy for that rich ghoul, I suggest you take your nasty ass out of this article and go read about Tenet or something instead. TERFs don't get to enjoy my content.)

Just as 9/11 divided American society into distinct “befores” and “afters,” so too will the COVID-19 crisis, supplying our cultural consciousness with a whole new framework of “pre” and “post” ideologies. Many aspects of life once taken for granted will be reassessed and reassembled, leaving us with questions about the new world we find ourselves inhabiting. Though fairly low on the scale of concerns at this moment in history, film studios have cast their life preserver into the same streaming techniques long blamed for the downfall of brick-and-mortar theaters. As far as I can tell, the digital releases have been a success (author’s note: this was written before the $30 Mulan debacle). Y’all heard about Trolls World Tour, right?

Trolls World Tour culled enough money through streaming alone that it made headlines, but I couldn’t tell you the details. Its early digital release and limited theatrical release arguably render it the first Hollywood contribution to “post-COVID cinema,” the stream of films to be created and released in our current liminal society. More will come as industries adjust and readjust to public appetite for films, but TWT is undeniably the first historical benchmark of the impending “PCC” movement, setting a precedent for film distribution inside the “new normal.” The second benchmark of post-COVID cinema could very well be Artemis Fowl, released June 12th, exclusively on Disney Plus.

An adaptation of Eion Colfer’s 2001 kid-fantasy-action novel of the same name, Artemis Fowl would’ve been a tough sell even under normal circumstances. Nineteen years later, beyond Harry Potter’s end, and beyond the Eragons and Inkhearts of the film world, Artemis Fowl feels as though it missed the boat by at least 13 years. I read Artemis Fowl as a kid, and I’m 25 now. Do you think I would’ve seen this if I wasn’t a freak about bad movies? Absolutely not. Artemis Fowl is if Harry Potter was more like Metal Gear. The books are bizarre and convoluted; a series of child espionage stories where magic is real. As an Internet acquaintance put it, Artemis Fowl is “Lex Luthor Jr. vs. elves.” I don’t believe anyone has read these novels since at least 2015.

That lack of interest is why I can’t imagine anyone would care to watch the Artemis Fowl movie, an inexplicable and constant misfire which both fails to capture the source material and to entertain in any way, shape, or form. The film achieves historical status because it is the first must-see post-COVID flop movie, on account of being genuinely, shockingly bad. As a corporation so dedicated to churning out assembly-line entertainment sausages, I am astounded Disney let something this horrid slip out. They should be thankful Artemis Fowl was released to streaming services. It allows this harrowing picture to die a quiet death on the Internet, which is merciful in comparison to the widespread critical & commercial humiliation every party involved would suffer had the film appeared in theaters.

First on the chopping block is director Kenneth Branagh, a genuinely talented man who really beefs it on Artemis Fowl. Working from a Shakespearean background, Branagh’s knack for emotional performances and general bravado is most evident in films such as Much Ado About Nothing, or his scenery-chewing turn as Gilderoy Lockhart in Harry Potter. Whatever stylization or personal touches Branagh could’ve put on Artemis Fowl are completely lost beneath the studio style, resulting in a film somehow even less creative than a sub-average Marvel outing. The world of Artemis Fowl is generic and ill-defined, relying on prior knowledge of fantasy tropes to fill in gaps that the film doesn’t even bother with. Is this failure to communicate on the part of Branagh’s lackluster vision? Is it thanks to the material itself? Things get so murky it’s hard to tell.

Even recounting the plot of Artemis Fowl is a struggle. A mastermind wunderkind boy uses his talents to track down his missing father, Artemis Sr., a world-renowned thief. As it turns out, Sr. has been captured by the residents of underground Haven City, fairy folk who want revenge on the master criminal for stealing their cultural artifacts. Artemis responds by kidnapping Holly, a member of a fairy military complex known as LEPrecon. The commander of LEPrecon launches an assault on Artemis’s mansion to retrieve her, there’s a big dwarf, an artifact, kung fu, and a bunch of other shit. I don’t know. The plot of Artemis Fowl is pure goop. Nothing much happens in the scant 90 minute runtime, but the lore and action are so poorly conveyed that the film feels incomprehensible. The whole point of the book is that Artemis is the bad guy, but the film is incapable of such a statement. If you’ve read the source material, you’ll be confused and insulted. If you haven’t, you’ll be hopelessly lost.

You won’t find much solace in familiar performers, either. Colin Farrell shows up for all of six minutes, but otherwise Artemis Fowl is a constant parade of looks-likes and could-bes, which at this point are most likely won’t-bes. Any career began with a film like Artemis Fowl will end there as well. Fans of a recent movie-musical will know at least one face, though the last time we saw it, it was poorly grafted to an orange CGI cat body. Somehow, against all laws of nature, Dame Judi Dench returns, batting one-fucking-thousand by following her role in the worst film of 2019 with a role in what is almost certainly the worst film of 2020. It is unreal. It is positively distressing. Judi, are you okay? Do you need money? Do you need a new agent? What do they have on you?

Dench portrays Julius Root, the spiky-haired Vulcan-eared commander of Haven City’s spec-ops military police force. She delivers all of her lines in a barely audible three-packs-a-day growl, performing little more action than sitting around and, well, commanding people. Her biggest moment is walking down a ramp in a tactical green Riddler outfit and grumbling “Top ‘a the mornin’” to the camera as if it’s a big one-liner. Oh, right. LEPrecon. Leprechaun. Ha. Hm. As dire as Dench comes across, every performance in Artemis Fowl is downright embarrassing. Lines are delivered in the same cadence as a pre-ride roller coaster safety PSA, or NPC dialogue in an Elder Scrolls game. The only side character with personality is Mulch Diggums, in the book a gremlinous dirt-eating dwarf; in the movie a sexy Hobbit cosplayer, complete with eyeliner.

This review would be a total failure if I tried to avoid the subject of Mulch Diggums, though I would rather prefer to. The suave, rough-and-tumble ex-con is allegedly known for being a master class thief, and is employed by Root to rescue Holly from Fowl manor. Mulch matches a fourth of Han Solo’s charisma with a fullth of Hagrid’s beard, and his character flaw is that he’s too big. Legitimately. He’s bigger than a regular dwarf, and tells Root he “just [wants] to be small.” Apparently, making him smaller is something Root can do, but she simply chooses not to as leverage. Okay? Cool, I guess? That’ll be resolved in the sequel, which I am 100% positive will happen.

It’s good that I really don’t have to talk about the other characters, because Mulch is hands-down the number one contributor of horrifying nonsense through Artemis Fowl’s runtime. The novels portray Mulch as a terrifying, subterranean goblin, one with the ability to unhinge his jaw, eat dirt, and propel himself underground by shitting out the dirt at rocket speeds. It’s one of the only parts of the book I remembered, and one I assumed they would cut after making Mulch more visually palatable. Keen readers will pick up on the use of “assumed,” plus the fact that I need to mention this element at all. So, uh, yeah. How do I put this?

Hm.

In Disney’s 2020 film Artemis Fowl, you will see a man unhinge his jaw with grotesque CGI effects in order to consume dirt and instantaneously rocket that same dirt out of his bussy.

Hmmmm.

Mulch pulls his mouth open like taffy, and yells “it’s feeding time!” before bending over to gobble up literal dirt; literal soil sediment. As he does, his boxered butt pops out of his pants and assblasts a massive cloud of dirt and debris. Words fail me, because the English language was not conceived to describe an image of this power and magnitude. Watching this scene is like being electrocuted—the horrific face stretching, then the one-liner, then the immediate comedy dirt fart, altogether a breathless triptych of terrifying impact. After writing this article I won’t retain much from Artemis Fowl, but this Mulch scene has imprinted like a frame-by-frame brain tattoo. It’s unreal. It’s honestly one of the most distressing scenes I’ve ever seen. It’s going to HAUNT me. I had to pause to take a breather from cackling too hard, but the movie immediately gets worse.

Right after this, we get a deranged sequence of Mulch’s distended used-condom body twisting and flopping and anally rocketing soil as he careens underground towards Fowl manor. I can’t even hope to describe this moment; it’s like trying to grasp the true form of a Lovecraftian horror. It’s awful, like just hands-down unholy and bad to see with my eyeballs. I prayed this was the last time we’d see Mulch in such a disturbing context, but he does stretch his cavernous mouth one last time near the movie’s end, and it’s miles worse than the first time he does it. From now on, I will wake up every day thanking god Artemis Fowl didn’t hit theaters during the golden age of Tumblr fandom, because my soul is not strong enough to endure sexy Mulch Diggums vore artwork. I won’t tell you what that is. You should know by now.

Anyway, this piece is less criticism and more soul-cleanse. I just need to tell someone this movie is real. I cannot live with myself, quietly stewing on the horrors Artemis Fowl presents. Having a character with turbo rock farts is one thing, but Artemis Fowl is a failure on the atomic level. The world is empty, the plot lacks stakes or engagement, and Artemis himself is simply an asshole. In the books, Artemis learns and grows as the plot progresses, moving from outright villain to semi-lovable jerk. Confined to a single film, the kid is just deeply unpleasant. It’s always a bold choice to make your main character unlikable, but you can pull it off if you tread carefully. Artemis Fowl treads in size 16 light-up concrete boots.

Most of the film is so unremarkable it doesn’t warrant mentioning, but all the hallmarks of funny-bad movies are spread about. Canted angles, unparsable subplots, horrid dialogue, confusing lore, janky CGI, bizarre costumes, a quarter-baked racism allegory…...truly, all the hits. Standout fairy creatures include possibly racist gremlin things, a definitely racist troll, and a centaur who’s actually pretty cool. It’s very funny when he runs and does a weird gallop. That’s probably the best thing I have to say about Artemis Fowl, is that the centaur is pretty okay. I don’t think you see enough of those dudes in movies anymore. What are the themes? What’s the message? Fuck if I know. The story ends on a sequel hook, which again, I’m 100% sure is definitely positively going to happen.

Until it does, we can luxuriate in the true gift of Artemis Fowl. I didn’t expect the film to be good, but I never could’ve predicted it would be this heinous. Judi Dench’s regrettable presence and Mulch’s one-man horrorshow are just two stars in a much wider, much more absurd constellation. Had this been released in theaters, I likely would’ve seen it three times. It is certainly the worst film since Cats, the worst kids’ movie since The Playmobil Movie, and possibly the worst book adaptation since Cat in the Hat crawled up out of the slime. That said…..it’s very goofy. I highly recommend getting some folks together and watching this stellar disaster. 

Just as we recall the Master of Disguise Turtle Club scene for being filmed on 9/11, Artemis Fowl will be remembered as an entry point into a new era of American film. Like a warm smile and a firm hug, the movie reminds us that even when cinema’s landscape changes in unfamiliar and frightening ways, we will always have deeply hilarious bad movies. No matter what happens, we can bank on good ol’ Hollywood disasters for a few laughs. That said, Artemis Fowl sets the bar so high for post-COVID trash cinema that I can’t imagine it’ll be topped anytime soon. Explosive dirt shits are a hard act to follow.