Happy Monday to you all! As I am still furloughed and my six-year-old is back at school four days a week, what better way to spend my time than by watching Disney’s most recent offering, Artemis Fowl. I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t even aware of the book series existence, let alone read any of them, so I had no idea what to expect from the film. When I first saw the title advertised, my instant thought was that it was another Star Wars spinoff. I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that it wasn’t. Not that I have anything against Star Wars films, I just don’t intend to review or even watch the new ones when they are realeased. I think the last offering from that franchise that I watched in full, was Episode 1: Phantom Menace, about a year after it came out. So, *checks IMDB*… Fuck! 2000?! 20 years ago, then. Suffice to say, if anyone wants to discuss the latest offerings, I tend to refer them to my brother or my dad. As always, I just heinously digressed. Back to Artemis Fowl.
Based on the book by Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl is the story of… Artemis Fowl (Jr, to be precise). A twelve-year genius/prodigy who’s father (Artemis Fowl Sr) gets kidnapped by a fairy (I mean various synopsises say it’s a fairy, although their voice and demeanour didn’t seem overly fairy-like). Artemis has to devise a plan, requiring other creatures from the fairy realm, to help get his Dad back. That’s the story in a nutshell.
Now, as I said, I haven’t read the books. However, looking at the reviews for the film IMDB, I’m quite glad that I haven’t. Those that are lovers of the series seem to hate the film as it is so far from the story in the first book. I think that this is similar to how Harry Potter fans felt after those films came out (although not quite as hateful). I hadn’t read the Harry Potter books until, I think, Order of the Phoenix was released in the cinemas and, as I had nothing to compare them to, I loved the Harry Potter films and thoroughly enjoyed Artemis Fowl. 
I can see where the book lovers are coming from though. It was quite vague in parts, which I’m sure is where the books would fill in the gaps. However, despite not knowing the characters, I enjoyed the casting choices. Current Disney-darling, Josh Gad, is great in every role he plays and his portrayal of giant dwarf thief (he is a giant dwarf that is a thief, not a big guy that steals dwarves, I should clarify), Mulch Diggums was no exception. It was nice to see Colin Farrell not playing a bad guy for a change and he is very easy on the eye, so his presence in the film as Artemis Fowl Sr, was appreciated by me and my daughter. Judy Dench was Judy Dench, so no complaints there.
In conclusion, I enjoyed the film a lot and can’t wait for the sequel, which was nicely set up.
7/10
Kerry 😁
But of course the synopsis on IMDB and every other movie website doesn’t say this, because then who the hell would watch it? Of course even without a synopsis like that, I didn’t want to watch the film, because I’m a Disney-cynic who is watching through every Disney film to find out exactly which of their films an average adult dude would find enjoyable without the bias of any childhood nostalgia. Oh, and because my wife has made me… For the record, we’re on film sixteen now. I’ve liked one film and tolerated around three more (considering we’ve had plenty of relatively unknown oddities, propaganda travel films and deer-snuff, this is actually quite a success). So the odds of me enjoying this motion picture are fairly slim even before we delve into a healthy slice of attempted puppy skinning.
The big problem with this film is just how much of its eighty minutes, is spent building up drama about something we KNOW will not happen. I mean, could you imagine if Cruella De Vil had succeeded in her plans? If she had, people would never even mention the mummy-murder from Bambi in tear-jerking Disney scenes. People would just say, “remember when that psycho woman drowned some of the cutest puppies ever animated and skinned them in front our childhood eyes? I don’t, but my therapist reckons it’s a key reason why I fear interpersonal contact and why I like to peel labels of bottles whilst crying.” Even Bambi would never go THAT far, so any rational adult is left with a sense of inevitability with how things will play out. That’s not to say a film with a largely inevitable plot cannot be good. It’s just that for me personally… this film… isn’t really.
The first is that the puppies, the adult dogs and the owners are happily reunited by the end, safe in the knowledge that the threat is now null and void. The second is that we see the perpetrators of grotesque villainy suffer a horrific fate, preferably with extreme pain and/or death, or even just honest to goodness imprisonment for our delectation. Now, the bad buys having a minor car crash and getting a bit of snow on them IS NOT A FUCKING COMEUPPANCE!!!!!!! Where’s the perverse joy in her suffering that we, the viewers, so desperately crave? And as a result, even though the puppies, dogs and owners are indeed reunited at the end, what’s to say that Cruella and the two bad dudes don’t just show up at the house after the films finished, and take the puppies at gunpoint?!
The second thing that really stood out to me in this film was the animation. It’s different to the Disney that I’ve been used to so far. I’m not an artist or a professional animator, so I can’t tell you the technical reasons or names for why or how it’s different, but if there were differences in prior films, they never really stood out. This time however, it’s a glaring step forward. Or more accurately, a giant saturated step back. The vibrancy of colours from previous films has gone and everything looks slightly grim. Combine this with the plot and everything felt cold. On top of that, everything looks so…. drawn. Everything looks like it has a pencil outline. I just don’t like it. This is very much just my personal opinion. It’s like the animators (who I’ve complained about a few times for their self-indulgent tendencies) wanted to really make sure you know that they were good with a pencil.
The usual Disney choir on sedatives opens up the film, before we join a snowy scene in a posh neighbourhood. A dude is giving a box to his wife as a Christmas present. Not just a box obviously. She opens it and there’s a puppy inside. It’s fricking cute. I need to point out right now that I’m a beta-male that’s comfortable in my skin, and I HATE bravado. I’ll still enjoy sports and ‘manly’ things, but I like cute baby animals and have no problem going “aww” once in a while. So I’m very happy to watch this adorable puppy frolic around, and as long as I don’t have to witness her traumatised face as her mother is savagely murdered, I’ll be happy. As this is Disney, my confidence is low. I don’t recall being emotionally scarred by this film in childhood though. But saying that, my anxiety disorder must have come from somewhere, who knows what I’ve repressed? I really hope she wasn’t in that box for too long. That’s a shit way to present a puppy.
Lady is bought a nice collar with a badge on it, that she is very proud to wear. She goes and meets up with a couple of her friends from the other big houses. Jock, who is the world’s most stereotypically Scottish dog ever, because he is a Scottish Terrier, and Trusty, an old Bloodhound who seems to only pretend to have a good sense of smell. They talk about how Lady now has a ‘Badge of Respectability’. When her male owner returns home she races back excitedly and jumps at him, whilst barking excitedly. This is something that I LOVE in this film. The way we switch seamlessly between dogs interacting like humans would, as well as seeing things from their perspective, then switching to dogs acting like dogs normally do whenever humans are around with a traditional dynamic. They do this perfectly and it’s funny as well as feeling natural.
Lady is sad because she was called “that dog” and is being ignored by her owners. She calls them Darling and Jim Dear as that’s what they call each other, so that’s what she assumes their names are. A nice touch. I’ve realised that I’m so far being far more positive about the details of this film than any other I’ve reviewed so far. It’s also less ridiculous than most of the films I watched so far too. Trusty and Jock tell her about, in their words, “the birds and the bees”. Well, they tell her that Darling is pregnant, anyway. They weren’t giving her an impromptu sex-ed class or anything. Tramp appears in the garden to warn lady that she will be basically ignored now that there’s a baby on the way. Jock and Trusty try to reassure her.
Next, we get some beaver eating. Specifically, eating the straps on Lady’s muzzle. What a helpful beaver. Following this, Tramp shows Lady the benefits of being a stray and his tricks for getting food. He takes her for an Italian. The one owned by that stereotypical and exuberant dude I mentioned earlier. He’s very nice but a little batshit crazy. It may just be me who thinks that. It may seem perfectly sane to some people that when two trampy dogs turn up outside your restaurant, the logical thing to do is light some candles, serve them up a portion of your house speciality and SERENADE THEM WITH YOUR FUCKING ACCORDIAN! It’s a lovely gesture though. The speciality in question is spaghetti and everyone knows this scene. It’s beautifully done.
Now Disney clearly likes to try and ruin everything they touch in some way (just my experience, don’t yell at me), and they have a bloody good go now, using a couple of their preferred methods of torture, namely, hideous songs and animal death. Firstly, the dogs in the pound literally howl a rendition of some famous song I vaguely recognize. It’s unpleasant. What’s more unpleasant is that they felt it necessary to have one of the dogs destroyed, just so we, the viewer, can never fully escape from reality and all the misery that accompanies it. I do understand that the grisly demise of most of the Pound’s residents is a good plot device to make us really worry about Tramp’s capture later on, but still… a little escapism please. A couple of the stray dogs in The Pound are the two that Tramp freed from the Dog Warden’s van, earlier in the film. They’re jealous of Lady’s collar as it means she’ll basically get out alive. The dogs are, however, digging a hole so they can escape. Clever dogs. Lady is informed that although he is very cunning and good at avoiding capture, Tramp is, in fact, a right old slut. Must make that night on the hill feel a bit icky…
So we get a happy ending of Tramp living at the house with Lady and clearly enjoying a life surrounded by fences and, judging by their 4 puppies, much humpage. Oh, and a gift from Aunt Sarah at Christmas which now makes me thankful that the cats actually didn’t scratch her eyes out… But this leads me nicely into my one small criticism (not including the destroyed dog at the pound) that I found. It’s not so much a criticism so much as something that doesn’t quite sit right with me. I’m a big believer in freedom, and I’m slightly uncomfortable about the notion of ownership. I get that dogs and cats are domesticated and therefore seemingly prefer things that way, but as demonstrated, (rather bluntly) in this film, a dog that is no longer owned by a human will ultimately be, quite literally, destroyed by a human. So although being owned is a far happier ending to being put to sleep, the fact the ‘happy ending’ involves Tramp embracing the confines of fences and collars, it suggests that the writers are portraying it as worse for him to be the freedom-loving-dog-who-don’t-need-no-man beforehand. But to be honest, as this is the first Disney film I genuinely enjoyed, I’m inclined to say fuck it, and just appreciate the fact I’ve finally enjoyed Disney…
Once in Neverland, they meet pirates, mermaids and fairies, amongst others. I don’t think I need to go into much more detail, as most people know the story well.
They also have a dog called Nana, who continues Disney’s trend of animals that have capabilities that are somewhat above what one might usually expect from them. It can clean, serve drinks, spell words with blocks as well as look after the children. So yeah, slightly advanced for a canine.
Peter Pan likes Wendy’s stories about him, and so she doesn’t have to move out of the nursery which would stop her telling them so easily, she must go with him to Neverland, so she won’t grow up. Wendy does the responsible thing you should do, when a strange flying boy tells you to leave the house at night and go to an unfamiliar land. She agrees and insists on bringing her very young brothers too… So she brings in John, who in another lifetime was the first-choice actor for the Harry Potter series, and Michael who can barely even talk yet, to go on this inexplicably reckless mission. At some point, Wendy also tries to kiss Peter, much to Tinkerbell’s disquietude and chagrin (using these words twice is too much then?), which is somewhat forward, even for a twenty-three-year-old.
They arrive in Neverland, where the excitement and adventure of the story can really begin! And where my concentration goes off a cliff. Adventures and high drama involving pirates really isn’t my bag. I never liked any of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. My tastes seem to be quite different to that of most humans I’ve discovered. We go aboard a pirate ship, where there are some annoying and ugly pirates, unsurprisingly. They all bully a servant dude. His name is Mr Smee. If you’re a presumably single servant to some bad dudes AND you’re called Mr Smee, you haven’t really been dealt the best hand. Captain Hook is looking at a map. Ah! In the North-East of the map is Mermaid Lagoooooun! Excellent. He wants to know where Peter Pan is, as the reason he has a hook for a hand is that during a previous fight with Peter Pan, a crocodile bit his hand off. The crocodile also swallowed a clock at some point, and now stalks Hook, whilst ticking. And I thought normality would resume after Alice In Wonderland. A very entertaining moment occurs when some dude starts singing and because his voice is extremely annoying, Hook decides to deal with that issue by shooting him. That was funny. You wouldn’t have shit like that in modern films. It’s also lucky Snow White never went on vacation to Neverland, as she would have been full of lead within the first hour. Another fun moment is Smee shaving a seagull’s arse, by the way.
I refocus to find Peter Pan, Wendy and Co in a hideout with a load of boys. Apparently, they’re the ‘lost boys’. And Peter Pan is banishing Tinkerbell for trying to trick the boys into shooting Wendy. So I’m informed that Tinkerbell has her own film series and is usually nice but even though I know that she is jealous of Wendy because she fancies Peter Pan, that is seriously, SERIOUSLY dickish. As in unforgivable! Also, bearing in mind that Peter Pan is a teenage boy, and that Tinkerbell is the size of a hand, I’m not sure how a relationship like that could ever work… Oh. Right. Also, I’m waiting for Peter and Wendy to get down to business. And it’s perfectly fine to wait for that as because even though he has never grown up, he is still probably technically about forty-five, and she is obviously twenty-three.
Ah brilliant, its Mermaid Lagoooooun!!!! It’s lovely that Wendy doesn’t have to just think about the Mermaid Lagoooooun, now she’s in Neverland she can actually VISIT the Mermaid Lagoooooun. The mermaids only have shells or hair covering their breasts and I find it slightly arousing… 😳 I think I just said too much. The mermaids seem to love Peter, and just like Tinkerbell, they are jealous of Wendy. They try to force Wendy into the water. When she protests, Peter replies, “They were only having a little fun, weren’t you girls?”. One of the lovely mermaids replies, “We were only trying to drown her!” That made me laugh. I like them. After they disappear from the screen, my concentration wonders off yet again….
Donald Duck discovers that even after the rope he was clinging to breaks, he doesn’t have to immediately worry, thanks to “Disney fucking with physics”.
The way water falls, Disney style.
Wendy is worried about Tiger-Lily. Who the fuck is Tiger-Lily?! My god, I should really pay attention, but I’m bored! I stop the film to be brought up to speed on exactly what the hell is going on. No wonder I didn’t pay much attention, this really is not my type of film. And I quite enjoyed Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland. It’s looking like I won’t be three for three for appreciating the Disney films of the fifties…
For me, this was probably a good film for kids, and probably a decent film for a lot of adults…. who are not me. I wonder if we are supposed to like Peter Pan. It’s just that I find him to be a lot like one of the popular boys at a high school. Very confident, has a lot of girls throwing themselves at him (and mermaids and fairies in this case) totally up his own arse and to be honest, I thought he was a bit of a dick. In fact, there was no one in the film that I particularly liked. Even Wendy I found to be annoying and too dumbly sycophantic towards Peter. I’ve spoken a few times about my need for a strong protagonist (a Zack Morris if you will) in a film, and not for the first time, I found this Disney film lacking.
I appreciate that having a trip to Disneyland Paris postponed is a real first-world-problem, but obviously I would much rather that than risk spreading a virus that can kill those with underlying health conditions. Additionally, though, seriously stop panic buying! It’s fucking ridiculous. Rant over.
I found this approach at around the twenty-five-minute mark. With my pad and pen set aside, I sat back and stared at the screen, with my body relaxed and my eyes slightly glazed, and let the experience vigorously penetrate my mind. Almost literally a ‘mind-fuck’ if you will. But by attempting to stop the forces that are compelling me to question and resist, as well as allowing the film to create its very own psychedelic haze around my brain, I’m in some way mimicking both the demographics I mentioned above and everything starts to make sense. Sort of.
Despite the absurdity of ‘The Madhatter’s Tea party’, there feels like cohesion and direction in amongst the chaos. I fricking loved this part of the film and it’s definitely my favourite Disney segment so far. I especially love the Mad Hatter proclaiming that the rabbit’s clock is exactly two days slow. The problem is apparently caused by the wheels inside it. His attempts to fix it involve pouring tea on it and spreading jam, butter and mustard (sorry, not mustard, that would be silly; lemon) inside it. I know it’s a famous scene and I can see why. But for every Madhatter’s tea-party however, there’s a story about ‘curious oysters’ or playing cards singing about ‘painting the roses red’ that didn’t hit the same spot. And that’s just my opinion. I’m sure every scene will float different people’s boats.
Alice is bored of normality and wants her own world full of nonsense. Within 4 minutes she’s singing and taking to birds. Why is there always so much singing and talking to birds? She spots a white rabbit that is late for something and decides to follow him, without really giving a satisfactory reason of why she feels she has to. One can assume that the ‘what the fuckness’ of this occurrence would cause most of us to do the same though, so I’ll let her off. She runs after him with her cat in tow, and then we reach a moment that I feel needs to be discussed here. After chasing the rabbit into an unpleasantly tight warren, she falls down a seemingly bottomless hole. The normal reaction of falling down a seemingly bottomless hole would usually involve much screaming, cursing with perhaps a small amount of soiling oneself. The reaction to falling down a seemingly bottomless hole, will never be, and I repeat, never be TO LOOK AT YOUR CAT AND HAPPILY WAVE AT HIM WHILST EXCLAIMING “GOODBYE!”
ey’re cute little oysters. Innocent and… well, curious. Just like babies with their shell bonnets in their shell cots. They have happy smiles and big wide eyes; these creatures have been almost humanized and possess all the traits that people biologically find adorable and feel compelled to protect. The walrus eats them. The fucking walrus eats them all alive. We’re not at Bambi levels of “hey, let’s fuck you all up for shits and giggles”, but we still have another example of Disney joyously using animation as a vehicle for sadistic dickery. You can tell when something pisses me off as the cursing increases dramatically. I’ve cursed quite a lot in twelve Disney reviews…
The biscuit makes her grow to the size of a house, which is problematic as she’s in a house, which results in her wearing the house like some sort of weird armour. She has no one to blame but herself. That being said, when a big bird comes along and starts singing about “smoking the blighter out” and generally showing zero compassion or interest in her safety, I can’t help but feel that they should be a bit nicer. But that is a recurring theme of this movie; It seems that most of the people she encounters are complete and utter arseholes. I think that this is supposed to interpreted that the moral here is ‘even if it is more exciting, nonsense isn’t necessarily better or for that matter, nicer’. Or ‘anything outside the norm is bad’. Hmmm, not sure how I feel about that.
Speaking of not cool, the Queen of Hearts. I really hate the Queen of Hearts. I know you’re supposed to hate her because she’s a dick, but I find I hate her in a way that makes me want her gone from my screen rather than being compelled to see her comeuppance. The other problem with this segment is that including a stronger and slightly more defined plotline here (at least compared to the previous segments) exposes the lack of depth throughout the film as both its strong point, and its weak point. Let me explain. The lack of substance really worked to the films advantage for most part, as not being given motives or understanding, the ‘wheres’, ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of people/animal’s actions made them that much more random and for, most part, funny. When you start including at least slightly more lucid plot points, such as a sham trial from a bad-tempered queen, that lack of depth makes it a damn sight harder to stay invested in how it plays out. I would have been happier if Alice had just met more good-natured lunatics that were involved in harmless meaningless shenanigans, such as the Mad-Hatter for example…
Elsewhere, Alice part-sings and part-cries her way through a song that I will skip through whenever I watch the film again, a caterpillar makes letters and shapes out of smoke from a shisha pipe and we have a mischievous cat that can turn invisible and stand on his own head. Events that are no more and no less absurd that happenings throughout the rest of the film.
Disney - Guide for the Misguided 