An average movie

Since this movie had been really poorly received, I wasn’t expecting much but since it was available on Disney+, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, after ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’, I’m afraid it was another pathetic attempt from Kenneth Branagh to launch a new franchise. Eventually, by releasing it on their streaming platform, it seems that Disney dodged a bullet because it is pretty obvious that it would have been a major flop if it would have been released theatrically. To be honest, I have to admit that I wasn’t really familiar with the book it was adapted from but, with ‘Thor’, Branagh already tried to make a movie mixing our world with a 2^nd fantasy world. However, here, this mix never worked though. I mean, after maybe 20 mins, we finally got to see the fairies world but this first glimpse was just so abrupt, it pretty much came out of nowhere and it felt really awkward. Another issue was that all the kids involved gave some rather weak performances, especially Ferdia Shaw. Seriously, I felt bad for him since it was his first movie but the young boy was pretty much supposed to carry the whole thing on his shoulders and, well, he pretty much failed, I’m afraid. Of course, you could blame the material but he was never charismatic or convincing enough and I never had the feeling that I was watching some really smart and resourceful young boy. But, above all, the biggest issue was that I was so bored from the beginning until the very end. Apparently, they did remove the thing that sounded the most intriguing about the books, the fact that Artemis Fowl II was a 12-year-old prodigy who had dedicated his life to criminal activities, leading in the process the Fowl criminal empire. Basically, he was supposed to be a bad guy which did sound pretty cool but this idea was completely cancelled in this adaptation. Anyway, to conclude, the whole thing was pretty much a massive failure and you should probably avoid it.