Artemis Fowl made headlines earlier this year when Disney confirmed the film would be skipping cinemas and being released straight to streaming service Disney+ instead, and now it's being talked about again – but for all the wrong reasons.
With the film scheduled to drop on Disney+ on Friday (June 12), the first reviews for Artemis Fowl have finally dropped and it seems that Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Eoin Colfer's popular book series has failed to impress pretty much anyone.
At the time of writing, Artemis Fowl has a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 15%, with critics dubbing it "utterly disposable", "charmless" and "bland and incoherent" and many reviews backing up the complaints from the books' fans that Disney was turning criminal mastermind Artemis into more of a good guy instead.
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Related: How to watch Artemis Fowl for FREE on Disney+
Digital Spy gave the film 2 stars (out of 5), calling it a "a fairly dour affair" that will annoy fans of the book series and struggle to engage newcomers to the franchise too.
"The movie's problem is that despite the family-friendly changes, it hasn't exactly turned it into a fun fantasy romp, like the central premise of 'Die Hard, with fairies' should be when the main heist of the movie kicks in," we wrote in our review.
"There's likely a longer, and perhaps more book-faithful, version out there of Artemis Fowl, and it's a disappointment not to have seen it given how this cut ended up."
And we weren't alone with those thoughts, so read on to find out what other critics had to say about Disney+'s next film offering.
The Wrap
"While an energetic kids' fantasy with cool creatures fighting each other is probably a reasonable win for Disney's new premium service in these days before most theatres reopen, it's hard to watch it as an adult and not wish for something that produced a little more magic of its own.
"At times there's a real stateliness to Branagh's directorial style and to Patrick Doyle's music, as the film moves through burnished, glowing interiors and landscapes for which the term picturesque seems sadly insufficient. It's as if the director is hoping that a little restraint and beauty can hide some of the silliness, which of course it can't. Not even close."
The Hollywood Reporter
"Within the scheme of Disney's schizoid mashups, Artemis Fowl is not as clunky as, say, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. But it's in that same deadening ballpark.
"Not entirely foul, but a charmless chore."
IndieWire
"For every Twilight, there is a Divergent. For every Resident Evil, there is a Warcraft. And for every Harry Potter, there are a number of movies just like Artemis Fowl.
"In a film built on a bestselling eight-book series, filled with all manner of magical beings (including Colin Farrell), and rich in fairy tale history, the best scene is one in which its grating narrator farts on a passerby. You didn't see that in the Harry Potter films, and for good reason."
Empire
"The real problem here is that the script, based on the first two books, shows signs of having been cut to ribbons and woven back together.
"There are some highlights. Judi Dench, as fairy commander Root, essays a largely solid Irish accent, Gad gets a good joke about gluten, and Nonso Anozie is a cool henchman. But Artemis Fowl deserved a little more edge and a lot more coherence than this effort, and Irish kids deserve a better class of anti-hero."
AV Club
"Artemis Fowl, the first Disney movie to have its theatrical release completely scrapped because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is bland and incoherent, with paper-thin character development, unimaginative world building, and a lot of daddy issues.
"The only interesting thing about this irritatingly smug and cheaply campy adaptation is how uninterested it is in its own source material."
ComicBook.com
"Artemis Fowl is clearly for kids, but that's not a good enough excuse. Kids deserve better than this mess, and so do the adults who have to suffer through it with them. Artemis may think himself a criminal mastermind, but the only crime in this film is the film itself. Moving it to Disney+ might be the smartest decision the Mouse has made all year."
IGN
"Disney's Artemis Fowl offers some visual eye candy when it comes to its thrilling action set-pieces and special effects, but struggles to develop its characters into memorable individuals. Sadly, the only character to leave a lasting impact is Josh Gad's Mulch Diggums, who mostly serves as the film's narrator. If Disney was hoping to turn Artemis Fowl into its next big franchise, this film is not a good example of things to come."
Los Angeles Times
"This is not a 'but the book was better' argument. It’s simply that by abandoning the original character and cobbling together broken story shards and spare parts, Branagh and company have produced something off an assembly line: safe, generic and utterly disposable.
"For parents looking for something to occupy the young ones after their 400th viewing of Trolls World Tour, Artemis Fowl may feel like manna from heaven — and apart from a snippet of Foreigner's 'I Want to Know What Love Is', an earworm-free safe space.
"But anyone looking for entertaining young-adult fantasy adventure might as well move along. There's nothing to see here. Like magic, storytelling seems a lot less enchanting when it becomes mechanical."
Artemis Fowl is released on Disney+ on Friday, June 12.
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