By: Keaton Marcus

Once again audiences are put to the task of enduring another attempt to create the next Harry Potter franchise. This time it's with Disney's book-to-film adaptation of the popular Artemis Fowl. You can tell this thing had a lot of potential, backed by a talented cast and a 125 million dollar budget. But this proves that sometimes an expensive cost and some capable actors really can't save this would-be franchise starter from collapsing. Director Kenneth Branagh attempts to wow viewers with special effects galore and world-building, but his own attempts at an innovative film get crushed under the confusing storyline and flat-out mediocre performances. There's plenty of VFX and CGI of all sorts in nearly every scene, but even the visuals feel a bit artificial. Sure, there are a few nice-looking set pieces, but the flaws commonly outweigh the pros. Ferdia Shaw, who portrays the iconic criminal mastermind, doesn't have the spunk the character needed, but at least he puts in some effort.

Man. It's hard even to describe how muddled this plot is. It's principally about Artemis Fowl II (Shaw), whose father, Artemis Fowl Sr (Colin Farrell), gets mysteriously kidnapped. He finds that the only way to free his father is to retrieve a MacGuffin called the Aculous with help from Domovoi Butler (Nonso Anozie). They will hunt down a secret world of fairies led by Commander Root (Judi Dench) in a daring attempt to save Fowl. My brain nearly imploded from writing that little paragraph. This film is a chaotic, confusing, and befuddling failure. Oh, and Josh Gad plays an Exposition Machine, Mulch Diggums. This will likely anger fans of the novels while ripping and tearing at non-readers' heads.

The cast is being filled with a hefty amount of skilled people, but they barely even try and make this movie better. As mentioned, this project is lead by Ferdia Shaw, who plays Artemis II. He wears Men in Black suits and glasses, and you can tell that Branagh was truly trying to make a superhero for kids to root for. Shaw has a few solid quips as the 12-year-old genius, and the result of the movie clearly wasn't his fault. The screenplay just isn't smart enough to help this kid. To make it even more saddening, it's Shaw's first role. I just can't help but feel terrible for him. Colin Farrell's character begins promising, but he is taken away in the duration of the first ten minutes of Artemis Fowl and is mostly off-screen for the remainder of the film. Clearly, they also wasted both Judi Dench and Josh Gad, who both play horribly idiotic characters.

You can tell this was gonna be a real baddy. The fact that Disney decided to just dump the movie on their streaming service, Disney+, gives you a clue that they don't care about this flick. However, their other upcoming releases, such as Mulan and Jungle Cruise, were simply just pushed back. The movie has also been through some development hell, switching to many directors over the years. It was originally supposed to come out in theaters last year. Unfortunately, it was delayed until later in 2019. After being pushed again to earlier in 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic made sure that it wasn't going to happen. Now here we are, watching a film made for the big screen on the comfort of our couches. But hey, at least we don't have to pay. Several live-action Disney films have been fairly disappointing, but this is a new class of horrible. Nice job, Mr. Branagh.

The final opinion is: In a failed endeavor to make the next cash- grabbing YA franchise, Artemis Fowl is a flightless, poorly-acted and artificial-looking adaptation...$KIP IT