Artemis Fowl, a young criminal prodigy, hunts down a secret society of fairies to find his missing father.

This is possibly the first weekend since the lockdown began that’s started to feel a little more normal in a cinematic sense, with the release of three movies that in ordinary circumstances would have drawn a reasonable audience at the cinema. One of those films is ‘Artemis Fowl’, a Disney fantasy movie adapted from a popular series of children’s books, directed by Kenneth Branagh and featuring some talented performers within the supporting cast. It’s been released direct to Disney+, supposedly due to the lockdown, but I suspect the studio were happy to have an excuse to dump this monstrosity, as this is a really, really bad movie.

The film tells the story of Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw), an annoying rich kid with daddy issues, who teams up with a dwarf and a fairy to rescue his father (Colin Farrell), who has been kidnapped by another fairy for reasons that do not become much clearer as the film progresses. The film is just over 90 minutes, yet feels much longer, and the screenplay is frankly all over the place and was particularly incomprehensible to a viewer such as myself who isn’t familiar with the source material. Granted, it doesn’t seem to have gone down too well with book reader’s either. Kenneth Branagh can be a pretty good director but this certainly won’t be troubling his greatest hits, nor will Colin Farrell or Judi Dench be going away with much credit for their performances here. As well as being all over the place, it’s actually quite annoying and I’m afraid to say that does start with the child actors, although Josh Gad once again doing his subpar Jack Black schtick is possibly the cherry on top of this utterly dreadful movie.

‘Artemis Fowl’ is genuinely atrocious and I heartily regret wasting 90 minutes of my time, even during a period where I’ve had more spare time than at any other point in recent times! For your own sake, please avoid this at all costs.

Rating: 1/5

Directed By: Kenneth Branagh

Starring: Ferdia Shaw, Lara McDonnell, Josh Gad, Tamara Smart, Nonso Anozie, Colin Farrell, Hong Chau and Judi Dench

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3089630/