Artemis Fowl

I thought Ferdia Shaw did fine as the eponymous character here. Sadly, the rest of it falls well short. He's the son of his namesake father who lives amidst the grandeur of "Fowl Manor" assisted by "Dom" (Nonso Anozie). His dad (Colin Farrell) regularly heads off on long, mysterious, trips and it is whilst on one such journey that the young man is issued with an ultimatum or face never seeing his pa again. An all-powerful gizmo must be found and it's in their house somewhere. Can he find it in time? Turns out that he isn't the only person looking for it. It was originally stolen from the fairies and so the pointy-eared, menacing, "Commander Root" (Dame Judi Dench) has despatched "Short" (an engaging effort from Lara McDonnell) to seek it out and retrieve it. Though the visual effects are lively enough, the adaptation of the story here is all a bit of a mess. The narration (Josh Gad) is little short of irritating; Dame Judi (and her seriously ropey Irish accent) just doesn't work at all well and the pace of the thing is all just too messy and rushed. We never really get to know any of the folks here, nor have much chance to explore the underlying mythology that gave the book that added spice. It's not terrible, and for younger kids might just have enough pyrotechnics and colour to divert complete boredom, but given the resources available for this film, it's really little better than a shallow CGI-fest that really doesn't do Sir Kenneth Branagh much credit at all.