[imagesource: Nicola Dove / Disney]

You can’t win them all, Dame Judi.

I was never going to watch Artemis Fowl, the movie slammed in this Telegraph review, but I’m sure there are many fans of Eoin Colfer’s bestselling teen novels that did plan on doing so.

They may be put off after reading said review, saying that neither Dench nor Colin Farrell can save Kenneth Branagh’s “senseless fantasy epic”.

Slated for release back in August of last year, that was then pushed out to May of this year, before the decision was made to release the film onto the Disney+ streaming service.

Calling it a “senseless epic” is one of the kinder passages, so let’s get to the zingers:

…the end product is all but unfollowable, thanks either to a screenplay that was incoherent to begin with, or an edit so slicingly brutal that almost every trace of the plot’s connective tissue was chopped out…

Mess doesn’t begin to cover it….There is no obvious causal connection between scenes, let alone a coherent and purposeful story arc; no clear sense of who anyone is, nor which side of the conflict they’re on, nor even what any of them wants, beyond a large computer-generated golden acorn.

Lots of things happen but nothing unfolds. It’s like watching a feature-length trailer for a film that doesn’t exist.

Artemis Fowl receives one single, lone star. Ouch. Go on, then – watch the trailer:

The hardest of passes from my side.

The Guardian was in a slightly more forgiving mood, awarding a two-star review, but you came here for some scathing takedowns.

Let’s head to Forbes, then, with a review that calls Artemis Fowl “One Of The Worst YA Fantasy Movies Ever”:

The truncated (94 minutes, with lots of credit cookies) and indifferent fantasy flick brings to mind the very worst (the first Percy Jackson movie, The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, etc.) of the post-Harry Potter wave of failed YA franchises…

I don’t know what did or didn’t happen before, during and after production. The end result is a lifeless and personality-free fantasy adventure that plays out sans much (beyond Irish locales and accents) to justify its existence.

Who’s up for more? Grand, because this is how IndieWire finished its D+ review:

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.

That seems like an appropriate place to call it a day.

Condolences to all of the parents who will be forced to sit through this with their children.

[sources:telegraph&forbes&indiewire]