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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Artemis Fowl (Patrick Doyle)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you can parse through a wild ride of disparate fantasy
action material for 20 to 25 minutes of heartwarmingly outstanding
lyrical beauty from Patrick Doyle.
Avoid it... if you cannot fathom hearing Doyle's Gaelic and electronic techniques merged with a symphonic ensemble, the style often flamboyant and hindered by a sometimes incomprehensible thematic narrative.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Artemis Fowl: (Patrick Doyle) There are plenty of
reasons why seasoned librarians hate movie studios, and 2020's Disney
adaptation of Eoin Colfer's popular 2001 novel, "Artemis Fowl," is a
prime example. Developed over the course of nineteen years by Miramax
and then Disney, the final product on the big screen in 2020 was a
spectacular failure, alienating enthusiasts of the book and baffling
those encountering the story for the first time. In the movie version of
Artemis Fowl, the origin story of the titular 12-year-old boy is
told as he wades through a conspiracy by elements of the magical
underworld to destroy humanity while searching for his kidnapped father,
who had been in possession of an mystical item that could be used as a
weapon by an evil pixie leading the charge against humans. The wealthy
Fowl family has the technical and political power to straddle these
worlds, young Artemis teaming with an odd band of elves, dwarves,
centaurs, and other creatures to solve the mystery and explain some
family history. The aminated film cost Disney $125 million in its base
budget and was yet another property damaged by the pandemic's closures
of theatres in 2020. Still, the movie was widely distributed on the
studio's streaming services, where it angered and confused audiences in
their own homes rather than cinemas. All sequel talk was extinguished
quickly, and it served as a notable blemish for director and producer
Kenneth Branagh. As a plus for film music collectors, the involvement of
Branagh brings Patrick Doyle to the scoring duties, and Artemis
Fowl allowed the composer to combine a number of his various genre
talents into one highly diverse soundtrack. Since the film was
essentially shaped in the quintessential fantasy blockbuster mould,
Doyle expresses himself liberally in the work, making for a broad
collection of fantasy, lyricism, action, and drama in a whirlwind of a
narrative. In some ways, the overblown scope of Doyle's approach to
Artemis Fowl is exactly its greatest strength, merging many of
his prior techniques into one score; in other ways, that haphazard
collection of wayward themes and styles yields a giant, soupy mess that
is recognizable as a Doyle work but not as satisfying as his narratives
can be when he's at his best.
In fairness, Artemis Fowl has a disastrous storyline with too many characters and senseless plot turns, so one has to approach Doyle's score with an understanding that the thematic and instrumental integrity may have been compromised by necessity. The general style of the score is all over the place, at times pandering to the Irish setting with gorgeous applications of uilleann pipes, pennywhistle, and fiddle reminiscent of Quest for Camelot, Brave, and Into the West while shifting to electronic embellishments akin to The Emoji Movie and action derivatives from Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. A vocalized new age tilt to the Irish portion occupies "Surfing" as Artemis Fowl's most bizarre but accessible diversion. Often, the Gaelic tones produce the highlights of the score, the pipes employed in rhythmic duties and the pennywhistle, while owing its roots to Quest for Camelot here, applied well to expand the sonic spectrum in Naoki Sato style. There's a fair amount of robust writing for brass in the work, even if some of those highlights take Doyle's Thor and supplies a touch of Debbie Wiseman's Arsène Lupin to that sound, especially in "Fairy Fight." For Doyle die-hards in search of the composer's heart-breaking lyricism, there are several passages of such loveliness here, and "A Dear Friend" even opens with trademark string whimsy from Doyle. Solo piano often carries many of the lighter melodic moments. Generally, the ensemble's mix is well handled, the electronics never too intrusive and the Irish elements outstanding at every turn. Where Artemis Fowl presents issues for the listener is in its total inability to form a cohesive thematic narrative, Doyle offering a handful of dedicated themes but not developing them intuitively. It's a score filled to the brim with really engaging thematic notions that either don't stick outside of a singular moment or others that switch their progressions at a whim to make them familiar to a concept or character set but not totally representative for the average listener. The main theme, for instance, is presented in two related but different ways, and it's inexplicably replaced in the final third of the film with a new main theme. From a story standpoint, these choices make some intellectual sense, but in execution they become inept at connecting ideas because they simply replace each other rather than evolve from one idea into something new for Artemis' journey and discoveries. Doyle's initial main theme for Artemis Fowl serves dual purposes and thus has two slightly different variants, both sharing the same four opening notes and some phrasing thereafter. The family variant represents the boy's relationship with his father, expressed with sincere, homely beauty by Doyle during the entirety of "Father and Son," early in "You're Not Going," and in both full ensemble and the intimate versions in "A Dear Friend." The same melody is altered to function as the main fantasy and adventure identity of the first half of the film but oddly not the second half. This version of the idea debuts on cello at 1:23 into "Time to Believe" over Great Expectations synthetic thumping and is highlighted by several beautiful performances throughout "Haven City," in which a choral element is badly undermixed. Massive performances of this theme starting at 2:01 into "To the Surface" have the same barely audible choral accompaniment. The theme turns to mystery at 0:22 into "Full Scale Recovery" before returning to full form at 2:06 into "Battle Stations." It opens "New Recruit" in battle mode but is largely abandoned by Doyle thereafter, reprised on cello at 2:17 into "A Dear Friend" and vaguely hinted at 1:36 into "That's My Ride." Replacing that theme as the primary identity of Artemis Fowl in the final twenty minutes of the score is a lushly evocative idea for the Fowl family legacy and, alternately, the boy's bodyguard, Dom Butler. Its tone and progressions generally foreshadowed in the unrelated narrative moment in the brief but pretty "Beechwood Short," this theme flourishes in "The Fatal Blow," building from piano and woodwinds to a full ensemble performance concluded by a wowing James Horner fantasy splurge. The idea returns in many modes throughout "Worth Fighting For" and affirms itself in control of the score by highlighting its final, victorious moments at 1:52 and 2:30 into "That's My Ride," where the heroism and synthetic coolness of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit's "Ryan, Mr. President" reaches its orgasmic crescendo. Several other themes struggle to establish themselves in Artemis Fowl, led by the military idea associated with the Commander Root character, its four-note fanfare applied frequently but its main, three-phrase theme a rarity. It debuts at 0:34 into "Commander Root," where the fanfare brackets the theme itself. The idea builds steam early in "Battle Stations" and nicely serves as counterpoint against main theme. (This usage is reprised in "Fairy Dust.") Its shades inform the action late in "Fairy Fight," the sinister ambience at 0:05 into "Collapse," and the rhythm at 1:21 into "That's My Ride." The muddiness that exists to perplex the listener of Artemis Fowl is especially prevalent in the lesser motifs that pop up throughout the score and serve their basic purpose without really tying anything together. The action material suffers this kind of anonymity to a greater extent, much of it underpinned by typical minor-third ostinatos. The duo of "Containment" and "Full Scale Recovery" present the base of this electronic material, and pieces of that rhythm help the development of the more boldly melodramatic action in "Bring Him Back." Other ideas arise singularly in the score and have no subsequent impact. Some of the synthetics applied to "Commander Root" are explored further in the middle parts of "The Aculos," where the connections to The Emoji Movie are unmistakable. After the big reveal of the artifact in that cue, Doyle shares an interlude sequence with the family legacy/Dom Butler theme in the cue. Otherwise, however, the Aculos motif has little influence on the rest of the score despite its outsized impact upon the story. Like the "Beechwood Short" cue, "The Artist" is another pretty moment for piano and woodwinds that has a touch of Randy Edelman sappiness but is nonetheless missed elsewhere. As mentioned before, the "Surfing" cue is also a singular highlight that showcases both the electronics and Gaelic elements, but it sticks out like a sore thumb amongst everything else. Those rare few who enjoyed The Quest for Camelot will appreciate the similar pennywhistle performances in the middle of this cue. Overall, Artemis Fowl is a likeable score with few obnoxious moments. The immensity of its fantasy portions and the intimacy of the lyrical passages offer countless highlights for the Doyle enthusiast. In fact, there's more to like with each listen. But the whole mass of disparate styles and themes simply doesn't work as a cohesive presentation. Doyle sometimes has a habit of writing a few substantial and memorable highlights in otherwise pleasantly average scores, and Artemis Fowl plays like a version of that habit on steroids, the highlights aplenty and well worth your time but the score still suffering from an identity problem in sum. Despite Disney's hope that this concept would span a franchise of films, Doyle provided absolutely nothing memorable for a general audience to recall in future films. One could argue that the production hell that occupied this movie for a long time is partly responsible for the "score to the moment" approach from Doyle, and that's fair. On album, the nearly hour-long, score-only presentation is an easy listen, available as a high-resolution download in place of a CD. A fantastic 20 to 25-minute suite of material awaits from that product. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 57:59
NOTES & QUOTES:
There exists no official packaging for this album.
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