This may or may not come as a surprise to some but I only review things that I actually want to see. That doesn’t mean I expect them to be good, there’re plenty of films I’ve seen purely because of their abominable infamy. The point is, I need a hook and with very few new releases during lockdown, finding something worth writing about has been extremely difficult over the last few weeks.

Then I saw a clip from Artemis Fowl. It was doing the rounds on Twitter, you’ve probably seen it. A terribly CGI Josh Gad opens his jaws to an inhuman scale. When I saw that, I knew I had to check it out and I’m glad I did. Artemis Fowl is awful but fortunately for me, it’s awful enough that it’s given me a lot to say.

Artemis Fowl is a 12-year-old billionaire boy genius. His father, a billionaire and genius in his own right, is suddenly kidnapped. With only a couple of friends to aid him, Artemis investigates, his search bringing him to the Irish Fairy Tales that his father passed onto him. Knowledge of these stories become invaluable as Artemis finds himself in an epic battle against a race of powerful fairies.

The Characters

If I had to describe the cast of Artemis Fowl in one word it would be ‘generic.’ As soon as you meet them, you know what they’re going to do. You know what’s going to happen to them. Mostly due to their characterisation at first (their visible traits and qualities) but as the film progresses and their true characters are revealed (as they should be in a typical story), you see that they’re still bland and boring.

Artemis is introduced as incredibly intelligent but socially incompetent. He knows everything about everything but how to form relationships with people. With that introduction, you immediately predict that by the end of the film Artemis will have formed bonds with other characters and learned to focus on others more than himself. The film continues and you realize that your prediction is correct, which doesn’t bother you initially. Afterall if you know where a character is going to end up, that doesn’t always mean you’ll stop watching. If the script’s well written, you continue to watch because you want to see how the character ends up where they do. For me, What Dreams May Come and The Prince of Egypt are good examples of this.

With Artemis Fowl however, you see that how the characters reach their destinations really isn’t that interesting. Their progressions are just as bland as their characterisations. Artemis doesn’t get any more interesting than he does in the beginning, neither does his father and especially his friend Juliet, who just appears out of nowhere with no introduction other than a few lines from the narrator, telling us she’s Artemis’s best friend.

Holly Short, a fairy Artemis befriends, ends up in a kind of interesting position but only with the assumption that a sequel is made, which judging from the widespread grilling this film’s getting seems unlikely.  The only characters I found entertaining was Artemis’s butler and Commander Root; the butler because I found his personality quite adorable and Commander Root purely because she was played by Judi Dench doing a hilarious Irish accent.

With dull characters, and a plot that reflects them, Artemis Fowl is a poorly written film. As a result, you’d think watching it would be an awful experience.

Well, not exactly.

The Camp

As a serious franchise film Artemis Fowl is a failure, however I can see myself watching it again in a few months’ time with an alcoholic beverage in hand.

The script is poor but its production is where the fun is. The action sequences, as well as being bizarre and over-the-top, are edited so sloppily that you just can’t help but sit and laugh. You don’t know what’s going on but it looks ridiculous.

The dialogue is adorably wooden with its obvious attempts at world-building. The CGI monsters (including the ground-eating Josh Gad) are cartoonishly repulsive. Oh, and did I mention Judi Dench’s Irish accent?

Artemis Fowl is terrible but it’s only an hour and a half (which is extremely short for a film of its kind) and the way it’s put together is so baffling, you’ll get a few laughs out of it. I’d recommend it if you’re looking for something short and silly but for something more than that, I’d say avoid.

I give Artemis Fowl a bad but admirable 4 out of 10.