Thanks for checking out our Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief review.
Genre: Adventure Fantasy
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Staring:Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, Kevin McKidd, Uma Thurman, Catherine Keener
Released: February 12, 2010
THE GENERAL IDEA
It’s the 21st century, but the gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters have walked out of the pages of high school student Percy Jackson’s Greek mythology texts and into his life. And they’re not happy: Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Even more troubling is the sudden disappearance of Percy’s mother. As Percy finds himself caught between angry and battling gods, he and his friends embark on a cross-country adventure to catch the true lightning thief, save Percy’s mom, and unravel a mystery more powerful than the gods themselves.
THE GOOD
The cast is pretty strong. Logan Lerman really holds this together and the bad parts below are never his fault. Alexandra Daddario plays Annabeth, the daughter of Athena is actually quite attractive and very capable physically. Grover is there for comic relief and doesn’t lay it on too thick. He is the right kind of sidekick. The rest of the supporting cast is great even though they don’t make up much of the film. The mom is great (Keener) and Brosnan as the mentor works very well. Having Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd as larger than life Gods is awesome. These guys were meant for these roles. Oh, and Rosario Dawson might have been part of the reason this got a PG rating. Meow with the Persephone digs. Oh they say it was the violence, but whoa.
The premise of the film was a lot of fun. Seeing the children of gods in a modern world and interacting with the quiet world of mythology that co-exists right under our noses is actually really interesting. The effects on the creatures were pretty darn good.
THE BAD
The dialogue, the forced hand fed plot and random leaps of logic all removed me from this film. Right off the get go we see Posiedon and Zeus meet and Zues is all pissed because his Lightning Bolt has been stolen… so clearly it was Posiedon’s son. Had to be. This sets the tone for every deductive moment of the film. These random assumptions just come out of no where without any justification. And its all to keep the plot going. And the plot devices are so force fed to you. Bit of a spoiler here, they kill Medusa by hunting her with reflections and cut off her head. Then they figure they should keep that head, you know – because that might come in handy. Groan.
And when anything is described as important, or that its really hard to do – Percy can do it with ease. Its in his genetic code or something – they actually suggest that is the case. “You have to stay at Camp Half Blood and train!” and in his first session he proves to be better than everyone else who has been there since birth. Yeah, I said Camp Half Blood… special place for the offspring of gods to train. Apparently there are dozens of them. Percy gets some classic Converse Hightops with wings that Hermes son stole from the messenger god, and they need you to run to work up to flying – and they take a lot of practice, but Percy accomplishes this in a couple casual strides and we are off. Of course.
I know this was aimed at a teen crowd, but someone must have assumed they were all retarded to have to spell everything out for them, there are no surprises here.
OVERALL
I was actually hoping for a fun fantasy film that offers a new twist on something familiar and I really think this film had that potential. With Chris Columbus directing, I figured this would nestle right in that Harry Potter niche and offer something light and fun. But it just fell short in so many ways.
I also was watching Lerman, as he is the lead rumour for a teenage Spider-Man in the upcoming reboot. I liked him in Jack and Bobby, and if this shows anything, it is that Lerman would do perfectly fine as a Peter Parker. He even makes for a great Percy Jackson – but the film fell apart around him.
I give Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief a 4 out of 10
