10 years after the fall of the Jedi, former master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) is forced out of exile to stage a desperate rescue attempt of a kidnapped young Princess Leia (Viven Lyra Blair). With the menacing Jedi hunter Reva (Moses Ingram) hot on his heels and the looming shadow of Ob-Wan’s former pupil Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen) growing larger, Kenobi is forced to rely on all his wits and help from the growing uprising within the galaxy to save the Princess and make it back to Tatooine alive.
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Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Moses Ingram, Vivien Lyra Blair, Rupert Friend, Joel Edgerton & Jimmy Smits
Watch it now in on Disney+
Lucasfilm, 2022
Like so much of the gap-filling approach Disney has taken to recent Star Wars fare – setting stories in unexplored time periods between films – Obi-Wan Kenobi’s toughest challenge is justifying its own existence. In a universe this expansive do we really need to be following the same familiar characters yet again? Fortunately the series has a huge leg-up over others in the return of fan-favourite Ewan McGregor, easily the best part of the prequel films and iconic in the role. He’s equally fantastic here, picking up right where he left, with an understated, meditative performance as an Obi-Wan wracked with guilt and without hope.
Series director Deborah Chow frames her narrative as an exploration of hope and guilt within a galaxy filled with dread, positioning Kenobi as a kind of helpful Liam Neeson Taken type – his very particular set of skills can help a lot of people – whose spark gradually returns to his eyes as he recognises the impact he brings to the people around him. Running parallel to that is the story of Moses Ingram’s Reva; the formidable presence of the imposing Inquisitor tasked with hunting down surviving force users rivalling the titular Jedi himself in terms of screen-time. Ingram does what she is given exceedingly well, but the role is rarely written to expand the character beyond silently seething or bursting with rage. The finale manages to add some more context to her character, drawing parallels with Obi-Wan’s own journey, but does so whilst condemning Ingram to a lacklustre mission, ending her story with a whimper rather than a bang.
Lucasfilm, 2022
Where the show falls short isn’t in its themes or McGregor’s performance, but rather the narrative itself: an unfortunately dull and cliched buddy film that drags more than it excites on the way to a thrilling finale. Chow clearly intends the show to be more of a character study than previous Star Wars media, consistently honing in on Kenobi’s mental state throughout his journey, but doesn’t bring enough interesting characters or inventive set-pieces into the mix to create a consistently entertaining show. Kumail Nanjiani’s Haja, a con-man posing as a Jedi, brings a few much-needed laughs and O’Shea Jackson Jr. is clearly relishing being a part of the Star Wars universe but neither is given much to do outside of unloading exposition.
The action, when compared to Lucas’ prequel films, is similarly lacklustre. Gone are the intricately choreographed lighsaber fights of the early 2000’s, replaced by what feels like the same retooled blaster shootouts and space standoffs we’ve seen since Disney took over the franchise. The final big action sequence aims to rectify this – a lightsaber battled overflowing with raw emotional weight and featuring some visually genius use of the vibrant blue and red lights of the blades – but is hampered by choppy, rapid-cut editing. It’s a suitably epic end to this adventure but one that proves Chow doesn’t have Lucas’ eye for the dance of the battle.
Lucasfilm, 2022
We’re living in an age where audiences expect a certain level of surprise in their big-budget entertainment and Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn’t disappoint in that regard, delivering plenty of fan-service moments for eagle eyed fans to dissect and obsess over. While these are fun to see, they don’t do enough to overcome how inessential the story feels. It’s great to see Hayden Christensen back in a galaxy far, far away and he does a great deal to show just how much Anakin has given himself over to his hatred in the intervening years, but only a handful of scenes really reinforce the loss Obi-Wan feels over Anakin and the desire for vengeance Vader has.
It’s hard not to wonder how a smaller scale story would have landed; perhaps the previously scrapped adventure featuring Darth Maul or something set during the Clone Wars to showcase the brotherly bond between McGregor and Christensen in live-action. There’s a certain element of cheesiness in seeing a young Leia running around as Bounty Hunters stumble over themselves trying to catch her that works against the more poignant story of Kenobi. That isn’t to say that what is here is awful, but it could have been so much more potent had the narrative been more focused.
Lucasfilm, 2022
Obi-Wan Kenobi is further proof that Ewan McGregor’s interpretation of the Jedi master is just as iconic as Alex McGuiness’. Buried within too much filler is a powerful performance of a man struggling to come to terms with the loss of a dear friend and the idea of moving forward without him. Deborah Chow clearly understands the character and the personal story she wants to tell here, but struggles to balance it with the other Star Wars elements fans expect – thrilling action, memorable side characters and investing larger narratives – on the way to a finale that features some of the best pieces of Star Wars content produced since Disney took over. The force might not always be with Kenobi, but it will always be with Ewan McGregor.
Star Wars is in a strange place at the moment. One of the biggest film franchises of all time, the series has seen its movie endeavours come to a temporary halt after the disappointment of 2019’s sequel trilogy-capper The Rise of Skywalker, whilst its efforts in other mediums like The Mandalorian and video game Jedi: Fallen Order show that fans are desperate for more galactic adventures that feel different and take advantage of everything the wider world of Star Wars has to offer.
Disney+’s latest offering, Visions might just be the property’s most out-there Star Wars content to date, handing the treasured reigns over to seven Japanese animation studios and tasking them with crafting unique stories in the galaxy far, far away. The results are largely successful, with striking animation across the board drawing from all corners of classic to modern stylings, emotional, impactful stories and some of the best interpretations of those classic Star Wars elements since the original trilogy.
Rather than review the series as a whole, we’ve decided to tackle each episode individually, ultimately ranking them. Whilst you should definitely watch the entire show if you have the chance, if you are short on time or just looking to dip your toe into these anime interpretations of Star Wars then this is the way.
9. The Village Bride
Lucasfilm, 2021
While none of the Visions episodes are bad, The Village Bride is the least successful in coalescing its myriad of big ideas into something that works both as a story and an expansion of the Star Wars universe. Following rogue Jedi, F (Karen Fukuhara) who finds herself in the middle of a small village where tradition dictates a young girl must be handed over to separatist warlords as a protection payment, the episode simply tries to juggle too much; throwing cross-cultural commentary and an examination of nature on top of an otherwise unsurprising story.
Fukuhara tries her best to instill some life into proceedings through her voice work and there are attempts to flesh out F’s backstory but the character is too bland to win us over; the supporting characters too familiar and the story too safe to elicit much of a response from the audience.
8. T0-B1
Lucasfilm, 2021
On its face T0-B1 may appear eerily similar to Japanese cartoon icon Astro Boy, sporting a similarly stunning style of animation and a very child-friendly tone – almost like a Chibi version of Luke Skywalker. Couple this with a Pinnochio-esque story of a robotic boy who must fend for himself after his master his eliminated by a Sith lord and the short can feel a little throwaway. But as the story encroaches into darker territory on its way to delivering a fist-pumpingly heroic finale, its purpose becomes clearer. This is one of the most simple, purest forms of Star Wars storytelling and, for someone, it will potentially be their introduction to this world.
On that level, T0-B1 is successful in delivering that visceral Star Wars thrill of watching a character go from humble nobody to hero, all wrapped up in an incredibly stylish package. It might not be very dissimilar from Luke Skywalker’s story, but it is inspiring and enraptures you in the world of T0-B1, and to some young person out there, that might be enough to create a lifelong Star Wars fan.
7. Tatooine Rhapsody
Lucasfilm, 2021
Easily the most unique of all the stories told within Visions, Tatooine Rhapsody follows the exploits of Jay (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an outcast Jedi following the fall of the Jedi Order who finds belonging within a band of miscreants, together forming a literal rock band. When their leader Geezer (Bobby Moynihan) is taken prisoner by Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) and brought to Tatooine to fulfil a debt to iconic crime lord Jabba the Hutt, the band springs into action to rescue their bassist, endearing themselves to a whole new fanbase in the process.
The episode wins points on the strength of its premise alone, leaning into the weirdness that the galaxy has to offer and away from the conventional Jedi vs Sith storytelling that the rest of the series favours. It wears its anime influences on its sleeve; full of zany, over-the-top characters and larger-than-life musical moments, a lot of which will have you wincing from the cringe-inducing lyrics. If you can get past this however, you will be rewarded with a simple but touching story of friendship that offers a glimpse into the ground level stories of regular people within the galaxy.
6. Akakiri
Lucasfilm, 2021
An ode to a more old-school form of Japanese animation, Akakiri presents the stylish hand-drawn adventure of Jedi Tsubaki (Henry Golding), who returns to his childhood planet to aid long-lost love Misa (Jamie Chung) in recapturing the planet from Sith ruling. Traditional in its form as well as art-style, Akakiri is largely a road movie, following the pair and two goofy, overly superstitious guides (George Takei & Keone Young) as they travel across the planet and sneak into the Sith’s castle, narrowly avoiding capture at every turn.
The simple premise works thanks to terrific voice-acting, especially Takei and Young, who bring the most humour to the entire series with their oafish guides’ constant babbling about the events transpiring. Golding and Chung have excellent chemistry, their dialogue hinting at a complicated past, without the need to dig too deeply into it before a shocking ending twists the narrative on its head, unafraid to leave you without a happy resolution in favour of forcing you to think about the complex moral choices that are so often glossed over in Star Wars.
5. The Twins
Lucasfilm, 2021
The Twins could easily function as one of Marvel’s recent What If episodes, telling the story of a set of twins (not dissimilar from Luke and Leia) born through the Dark Side of the Force and tasked with subjecting the galaxy to their rule. One of these twins Karre (Neil Patrick Harris) defects from the pair’s evil plan, stealing a necessary component to a Death Star style weapon and sending sister Am (Alison Brie) into a blind rage, culminating with the siblings thrown into all-out war with each other.
On its face this is essentially “what if Leia went to the Dark Side” but what makes The Twins so fascinating to watch is the way it embraces the craziness of anime such as Dragon Ball Z and Gundam with a battle for the ages; full of explosions and over-the-top twists. A normal lightsaber fight? Try a robotic suit of six lightsaber whips against an entire X-Wing out in the vacuum of space. It is this total commitment to full-tilt insanity that makes the episode so enthralling, with each new development in the battle a showcase of the creativity and inventiveness that the franchise helped inspire in the first place.
4. Lop & Ochō
Lucasfilm, 2021
Another hand-drawn tale – this time from Japanese studio Geno – Lop & Ochō blends not only its in-episode worlds, with a small, heavily Japanese-influenced city overrun by an Imperial regime, but its story influences, drawing on the original trilogy’s fondness for found family storylines and the political overtures of the prequel trilogy to particularly potent effect. Alien slave Lop (Anna Cathcar voices the anthropomorphised rabbit) is rescued by Ochō (Hiromi Dames) and her village-leader father Yasaburo (Paul Nakauchi), and adopted into the family as a sister to Ochō, who is next in line to lead the clan. When an Imperial occupation divides the clan from within – with Ochō choosing to join the Empire in order to stave off her village’s destruction and Yasaburo opting to fight for their freedom – Lop is forced to step in to stop the Empire and reconcile her broken family.
The stakes are certainly epic in scope, but Lop & Ochō favours a more focused approach to the storytelling, detailing the ground level struggle of the village and the particularly tough situation it finds itself in: desperate to be free of Empire rule but unable to function without it thanks to years of resource mining. It’s a high concept wrapped up in the distinctly human struggle of Yasaburo’s clan and the emotional beats between the central trio hit home, despite the relatively short runtime. Lop, Ochō and Yasaburo are all given enough time to let their ideas breathe and you can understand each party’s viewpoints, making Lop’s ultimate decision that much more emotionally impactful, as only the the best Star Wars stories can be.
3. The Ninth Jedi
Lucasfilm, 2021
When young Jedi Ethan (Masi Oka) answers a mysterious beacon from the shadowy Juro (Andrew Kishino) offering him one of the ancient weapons of the Jedi – a lightsaber – he finds he is part of a large group of outcast Jedi who have answered the call. As the group debate over the true identity of their host, young Kara (Kimiko Glenn) is forced to go on the run after bounty hunters storm the house she shares with her father, murdering him in an attempt to steal the lightsabers he has created for Juro. Seeking shelter at the only other place she knows, Kara finds herself on a course to interrupting the Jedi’s gathering, with her arrival setting off an unpredictable chain of events.
The Ninth Jedi is one giant exercise in challenging iconic Star Wars preconceptions, steadily building tension towards a reveal that throws the audience for a loop but never feels like a cheap trick. Instead it invites us to look at how we view the franchise as a whole, at how we have been conditioned to think a certain way about how certain characters look or behave and how that behaviour pigeonholes them as a certain type of character. That might sound overly political or preachy but The Ninth Jedi never feels that way, with its slow burn of intrigue and action-packed side story intersecting in an explosive finale.
2. The Elder
Lucasfilm, 2021
A simple but extremely effective episode, The Elder focuses on a master Jedi and his Padawan as they investigate a disturbance on a nearby planet, plunging them into a deadly battle with an ancient Sith enemy. Immediately the animation grabs you; an intricately detailed and polished style that sets the scene for a more mature episode than what has come before. Once the duel swings into full effect it is stunning to behold: a dimly lit, rain-soaked affair brightened only by the vivid greens, reds and blues of the participants lightsabers, with fight choreography as impressive as many of the franchise’s best.
The relationship between Jedi’s Tajin (David Harbour) and his apprentice Dan (Jordan Fisher) will be instantly familiar to fans of Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn’s bond in The Phantom Menace, creating an immediate connection to the characters that adds to the tension of the final showdown. It might not pack the heavy thematic notes of other episodes but The Elder is a fine example of how the fundamentals of Star Wars can create something engaging and investing without the need for complex worlds or backstory; how the choreography and movement of a fight alone can tell a compelling and gripping story.
1. The Duel
Lucasfilm, 2021
George Lucas has long spoken about the influences he drew on when creating Star Wars and like Lucas’ original films The Duel wears those influences of Japanese samurai culture and Westerns on its sleeves, combining them with a visually striking, black and white art style to create something wholly unique to the Star Wars canon. We follow our largely silent Ronin hero (Masaki Terasoma) as he wanders into a small village seeking shelter and sustenance. When a group of Stormtroopers, led by a mysterious Sith warrior, arrives to subjugate the village, a group of bounty hunters employed by the villagers bravely fight back unaware of the power of their Sith opponent. Overpowered and on the brink of the defeat, the village must place their faith in the shadowy Ronin to defend them.
As with the best Western stories, The Duel challenges the morality of its hero, not staying beholden to the dichotomy of Jedi and Sith as the episode presents the possibility of the Ronin being tuned to both the Dark and Light side of the Force. Visually he appears to be a Jedi, but as events unfold you understand that, unlike the art style, this world isn’t that black and white. Exploring the murkier underbelly of the Star Wars galaxy is something fans have long been clamouring for, and The Duel shows that Jedi and Sith exist without being wholly good or evil like heroes and villains of the past.
The visuals are, simply put, stunning; resembling a living painting with the way the line work of the hand-drawn style shifts as characters move. Vibrant blue laser bolts and vivid red beams of lightsabers pop against the muted background, creating scenes so visually stunning they could be hung as artwork. As the first episode in the anthology, The Duel is tasked with setting the tone for things to come and it succeeds the most in balancing all the elements at play, from the Anime craziness of the Sith’s umbrella lightsaber, the classically Japanese Ronin hero to an R2-D2-like droid that provides some much-needed humour. A perfect introduction to an exciting new chapter in Star Wars.
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Star Wars: Visionsstars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Alison Brie, Neil Patrick Harris, Henry Golding, Jamie Chung, David Harbour, Jordan Fisher, Masi Oka, Kimiki Glenn, Anna Cathcar, Hiromi Dames, Paul Nakauchi, George Takei, Bobby Moynihan, Temuera Morrison & Karen Fukuhara – Streaming on Disney+ Now.
Standing out is hard to do in the superhero genre, leading the ever-churning Marvel machine to try increasingly experimental ways of delivering their patented brand of superhero shenanigans to audiences post Endgame. The first attempt at that new normal comes in the form of the first Marvel television show to hit Disney+: WandaVision. Doing what most other Marvel projects don’t proves to be the series’ greatest strength here, placing the focus on character rather than action in its exploration of two of the lesser developed Avengers; Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany’s robotic Vision. That development goes a long way to increasing the viability of this behemoth of a franchise without franchise stars Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans but it isn’t without its flaws, namely a lack of spectacle in its eventual action, a poorly fleshed out villain and enough filler to give the Netflix Marvel shows a run for their money.
Of all the Avengers not in the core cast of heroes, Wanda may just be the most interesting, as well as the most powerful. Her story is one of the most tragic in all of the MCU and her previous appearances have all been as part of a larger story, with key moments central to her character serving as lynchpins for bigger stories, never zeroing in on her own experiences. This is a character who has survived a bombing as a child, been turned into a mystical being with a magic wand, helped a killer robot lift her home country out of the sky and drop it like a meteor, accidentally killed thousands mismanaging a bomb and watched her robotic boyfriend die at the hands of an alien being. That takes a toll on anyone and yet we know next to nothing about Wanda. WandaVision’s biggest strength is the fleshing out of her character, something Elizabeth Olsen is clearly relishing exploring as she imbues the character with a fun, witty charm that belies the dark effects of the mental trauma brought about by Vision’s death in Infinity War. It’s her best work to date as the Sokovian native, clearly priming her for a bigger role going forward and proving that she has the chops required to bear that weight.
Marvel Studios, 2021
We find the magical Avenger inexplicably living in some sort of a sitcom reality, with earlier episodes shot in black and white and costumed to perfection to emulate the styles and humour of shows such as The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched. With Vison somehow by her side, all seems well for Wanda living out her days in suburbia with the occasional unannounced drop-in from nosy neighbour Agnes (Kathryn Hahn) to spice up an episode. These first two episodes of the show are by far the most impressive visually, with sets borne out of the look and feel of sitcom houses of the past, evolving and changing to suit the era of television being parodied whilst always feeling like an evolution of the one house. Similarly, that black and white look requires a great deal of technical wizardry, covering everything from the lighting to the colour of paint Bettany was covered in as Vision to best bring his elaborate costume into the golden age of television. It all combines to showcase a deep reverence for television that goes beyond a cheap gag in Marvel’s first foray into the small screen.
As the story goes on, the style of the show begins to evolve into a more modern television setting, and as Wanda starts to notice strange occurrences in her idyllic home of Westview the action begins to shift to a team of operatives and scientists attempting to gain access to this “world” Wanda has created, seemingly unbeknownst to her. This team consists of previous MCU side-characters; FBI agent Jimmy Woo (Randall Park) from Ant-Man and the Wasp, theoretical physicist Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) from the first two Thor films and the adult version of Monica Rambeau (Teyonnah Parris) from Captain Marvel on a mission to prevent Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg) – director of SHIELD replacement organisation SWORD – from launching an all out attack on the out-of-control Avenger, imploring him to appeal to her better nature rather than seek violence. For fans of the more traditional MCU plot threads, this storyline will be more to your liking, even if it is light on meaningful characterisation or impact in the grander scheme of things. These characters are like comfort food, taken from the more lighthearted MCU instalments and constantly cracking jokes as they explore the world of Wanda’s self-imposed television show.
Marvel Studios, 2021
You see, the way we perceive Wanda’s world as an old-school television show, so too do those living outside of her field of influence, with Darcy and Jimmy quite literally watching the same “episodes” of her show as us on high-tech computers. When we move to a new era of television, more cracks begin to show in both Wanda’s world and the story of WandaVision itself. Twists, in the form of cliffhanger endings, plague the middle run of episodes, constantly introducing new storylines and characters to the point where there simply aren’t enough remaining episodes to address it all. One cliffhanger in particular introduces a character with potentially enormous ramifications for the greater MCU (no spoilers here), which hangs over multiple episodes as we believe this person is being controlled by Wanda and thus not their true self. The reality of this person’s presence is far less interesting than what could have been, with the rushed conclusion to their storyline coming across as cheap and manipulative of the die-hard Marvel fanbase rather than witty and clever as likely intended; retreading the divisive twist of Iron Man 3 to poor effect once again. Seriously Marvel, stop doing that.
Once the ultimate villain of the piece reveals themselves, we’re treated to an admittedly delightful piece of music taking us through this person’s manipulations that raises more questions than it answers; the “big reveal” fooling absolutely no one and making what had come before feel like filler rather than a slow burn given there was something off about the villainous character from day one. Despite their visual proficiency, the first two episodes can really be skipped in their entirety, adding nothing to the overall story other than setting the scene, something which can be gleaned from a quick “previously on…” segment without losing anything of the experience of WandaVision. There is a sense that the creators of the show may have foreseen a response like this, retroactively detailing all the villains nefarious machinations throughout these episodes to middling effect, as we know from watching that nothing of consequence came from these episodes. All that remains is a hollow villain – the hallmark of far too many Marvel projects – whose paper-thin motivations never go beyond attaining inexplicable power and destroying Wanda. It’s a tired, rote tradition that goes against the very ethos of WandaVision’s originality, causing the rushed final episode to lose a lot of the momentum and goodwill it had built up with a generic shoot-a-thon of a final conflict. Even the television spoofing tradition of earlier episodes is turned into a hollow gimmick after a few episodes, with a later attempt to give the show a Modern Family-esque mockumentary style falling short as it clashes against the more traditional Marvel movie feel.
Marvel Studios, 2021
Despite all that, the characterisation of Wanda and Vision shines through – with Olsen and Bettany’s chemistry holding it all together. The reborn Vision may exist largely as a physical manifestation of Wanda’s grief rather than his own fully fledged character, but Bettany still comes to play, spouting some truly profound and emotional one-liners that cut the confused Wanda to her core, prompting some desperate soul-searching that will be compounded in future films. In a somewhat minor spoiler (consider this your warning), the show introduces Tommy (Jett Klyne) and Billy Maximoff (Julian Hilliard), Wanda and Vision’s twin sons borne from her magic. Their presence adds yet another emotional layer to Olsen’s performance, with the role of motherhood now thrust on the already mentally unravelling Avenger amidst a sea of other troubles. Olsen takes all these new aspects of her character introduced throughout the season and folds them into Wanda with ease; paranoid and uneasy as life as she knows it begins to crumble around her. The twins’ appearance also sets up some intriguing storyline’s for Wanda going forward, with that deep maternal connection providing a replacement for the deceased Vision that feels like a natural evolution of the character.
WandaVision is a fascinating gamble from Marvel; one that alternates between feeling wholly original and frustratingly familiar. The decision for Marvel’s introduction to television to play with the concept and history of the medium is a stroke of genius that sets it apart from what has come before in more ways than the size of the screen. Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany prove to have the best chemistry in the franchise since Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, selling the absurdity of an android and witch living in suburbia with ease and leaving you with an uneasy sadness in the back of your mind at the thought of Vision’s temporary revival ending. The uniqueness of its television spoofing format does feel like a gimmick at times – one which leaves many questions unanswered and storylines half-baked – and the villain fails to live up to the standard of a Loki or Thanos but at the end of the day WandaVision is about its namesake characters and Wanda and Vision have never felt as fully formed and interesting as they do now. If this is what the future of Marvel looks like, then bring it on.
Marvel Studios, 2021
WandaVision stars Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Kat Dennings, Randall Park, Josh Stamberg, Julian Hilliard, Jett Klyne & Evan Peters – Streaming on Disney+ now.
It’s a weird time to be a movie fan right now. With the closure of cinemas due to the current pandemic new films have become a rare thing, with Netflix reveling in its constant supply of original content, most of which seems to hit their target market quite nicely. Netflix is so far ahead of the pack in this regard and is totally dominating the streaming market during the pandemic, to the point where you would be forgiven for forgetting that Disney+ was even a thing, having seemingly not released anything worth mentioning since The Mandalorian. With a brand name like Disney it is hard to believe that their first big budget, highly publicised release on the platform in months is as bad as Artemis Fowl unfortunately is. Indeed the film, directed by long-time Disney collaborator Kenneth Branagh, is an almost incomprehensible mish-mash of genres and tones; in addition to being one of the most corniest things I’ve seen in years. People throw the word “cringeworthy” around a lot these days, but I can think of no better word to describe Artemis Fowl, a monumental misfire that almost has to be seen to be believed.
Based on the young adult novels of the same name by Irish author Eoin Colfer, the film centres around boy genius Artemis Fowl Jr (Ferdia Shaw), a charismatic young man seemingly burdened with great intelligence, spending his days arguing with schoolteachers about his attitude towards the work he considers beneath him. His nights, however are spent alongside his father (Colin Farrell), a renowned billionaire art dealer and entrepreneur who secretly schools his son in all manner of Irish fairytales and folklore. When his father mysteriously disappears, Artemis begins to realise that the world of goblins and sprites that his father has described is real and finds himself in a race against time to recover the Aculos, an ancient artefact whose powers are never really quantified and which simply cannot fall into the wrong hands as it will destroy the worlds, both fairy and human. You know, the usual stuff. Teaming up with bodyguard Domovoi (Nonso Anozie), fugitive dwarf and expert safe cracker Mulch Diggums (Josh Gad) and fairy police officer Holly Short (Lara McDonnell), Artemis must comb through his father’s studies in order to search for the Aculos and prevent certain doom.
Disney, 2020
Sounds like a lot of cliched exposition-heavy hooey doesn’t it? That’s because it is. Artemis Fowl’s chief problem is that it is so bogged down with exposition and needless world building that it forgets to give the story strong enough characters for the audience to latch onto. Everyone is so woefully underwritten that you never really get a grasp of who anyone really is. Sure, they all get a scene highlighting their defining attributes; Domovoi is the cranky butler who specialises in martial arts, Mulch is the wise-cracking bandit who can dig under buildings and Holly has a troubled past and wings. That’s about as far as it goes, depth-wise. Even Artemis himself, the so called “criminal mastermind” has been so toned down from the book, devoid of any personality, criminal or otherwise. He’s simply an annoyingly arrogant little twerp, who constantly corrects people and thinks he is outsmarting them only to get one-upped every time. Then there’s the story, or lack thereof. The pacing of it all is such that by the time the first proper action scene rolls around and you think you’re getting to the good stuff, the credits roll. I’m not kidding. The film literally has one scene that you could pass off as an action scene and even that is pretty poor by today’s standards. There are a few attempts to innovate by playing with time and warping characters around the joint and this is where Artemis Fowl is at its best, when nobody is speaking and the story isn’t being discussed. Outside of these small pieces however, the action is largely pretty terrible, lacking the CGI polish of similar Disney tentpoles.
It’s not even worth mentioning here that the film is set in Ireland, because the film needlessly beats you over the head with the fact so often that the phrase “Shut the four-leaf clover up” is actually uttered. Again, I’m not kidding. It’s a pity that the cast themselves didn’t get the Irish memo, as every character that attempts the accent invariably decides to abandon it in spots, particularly Fowl himself Ferdia Shaw. He is a young talent and still learning, so it can be forgiven but it is a jarring shift to go from an Irish accent to high class British as often as the shot changes, but that isn’t the worst offender. Josh Gad and Judi Dench, yes the esteemed Dame Judi Dench, have seemingly been given the direction to talk as if they have both a chest infection and a mouth full of marbles, as an excuse for gruff, world weary characters. The paycheck must have been good for Dench, who seems to despise every corny, nonsensical line she is forced to utter as the Head of Fairy Police and Holly Short’s mentor. Her presence brings a certain prestige to the picture, but it is clear that she is well past these CGI heavy roles and her tiredness shows in the performance. To his credit Josh Gad is the standout here, clearly going for something as the charmingly offbeat Mulch Diggums, a portly combination of Gimli from Lord of the Rings and Chris Pratt’s Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. He is clearly having fun experimenting with the comedy here and whilst not all the choices pay off, his presence is a welcome distraction from the tedium of Artemis’ storyline.
Disney, 2020
What baffles me most about Artemis Fowl is the involvement of Kenneth Branagh in the directing duties. The film seemed robbed of all his sensibilities and style, an incredibly bland journey through a world begging to be a mash-up between Star Wars and Harry Potter and coming nowhere near the greatness of either of them. Branagh has said that he made numerous changes from the book and the finished product just doesn’t do anything to justify that decision, as we are forced to listen to huge chunks of exposition and fairy history at a time. He seems so preoccupied with the sheer scale and intricacies of the world that he has forgotten to actually adapt the book. Despite Josh Gad’s best efforts, Artemis Fowl is ultimately an incredibly boring and corny film that completely squanders the rich property it is based on and does nothing to bolster Disney+’s already scarce original content offerings. Do yourself a favour and avoid this one at all costs, unless you feel like a good 90 minute nap, of course.
