Artemis Fowl: Gone Foul?

On May 29th 2020, Artemis Fowl arrived on Disney+.  Although it was originally set to come out in theaters, the sudden arrival of the coronavirus pandemic forced Disney to release the movie on its platform instead.

Being a huge fan of the books after reading all of them in fifth grade, I was super excited to see all of the characters come to life, especially Artemis Fowl.  I really wanted to see how the author imagined Haven City. However, I was extremely disappointed by the entire film, which was ruined, in my opinion, by the casting.

Being Asian-American, I was extremely disappointed with the actor chosen to portray Domovoi Butler, the protagonist’s butler.  In the books, the character was Russian-Japanese.  However, he was portrayed by Nonso Anonzie, an actor of Nigerian Igbo descent.  Removing the original cultural heritage of the character made me wonder if Disney cared about the equal representation of Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and those of AAPI descent.  Although Disney had a good and positive representation in Moana, why was Disney unable to do it here?  Additionally, by racebending the role of Domovoi Butler, it seemed that Disney wanted to enforce harmful stereotypes of black servants and scary black men.  

Holly Short, an elven police officer, was whitewashed.  Despite being described as a dark brown complexion, the actress of Short was white.  The decision to cast Lara McDonnell seemed ignorant to whitewashing.  There are many women of color who are able to portray Short; why did Disney whitewash this role?  This isn’t the first time Disney has whitewashed a role; Johnny Depp was casted as a Native American in The Lone. Ranger and Tilda Swanton as the Ancient One (a Tibetan male) in Doctor Strange.  

These decisions seemed to make Disney appear ignorant of both stereotyping and the importance of representation.  

I was also disappointed with the casting of the protagonist, Artemis Fowl Jr.  Fowl was portrayed by Ferdia Shaw.  Shaw was a poor actor and lacked emotion when playing Fowl.  It was rather displeasing to watch him and it ruined the film.  

For those unfamiliar with the Artemis Fowl series, such as my sister, were simply confused by the film.  Josh Gad’s poor portrayal of Mulch Diggums made my sister think that he was an imitation of Hagrid from the Harry Potter franchise.  The film didn’t explain many concepts to newcomers, expecting them to already understand these concepts.  Additionally, the movie felt quite long and dragged on forever, making me want to switch to watch another movie instead.  

Overall, I definitely would not recommend watching Artemis Fowl.  After watching the movie, I was extremely disappointed with Disney.  The poor casting of characters and the poorly written script resulted in a film that dragged on for hours.  The film definitely did leave me with a foul taste in my mouth.

-Jade

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