PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF Movie Review
PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF was just released yesterday and I had an opportunity to go and see what the fuss was all about.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is the story of a young high school kid, Percy Jackson ( Logan Lerman), who lives with his mom, Jessie (Catherine Keener), and step dad in a low income neighborhood. Percy also has a good friend, Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), who is his sidekick. It is during a trip at the museum that Percy discovers that he is a demi-god, half man and half god as his mother had an affair with a god, Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). Percy also finds out that Zeus (Sean Bean) suspects him of having stolen the Lightning Bolt and has set a deadline for Percy to return it. Flanked with his pal Grover and a demi God, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), daughter of Athena, whom he meets at a special camp for Demi-Gods, Percy sets out on a quest to free his mother who has been kidnapped by Hades (Steve Coogan) who also wants the lightning bolt and is holding her as a hostage in the Underworld.
Before I tell you what I thought of the movie, I first have to disclose this very important fact: I have never read any of the Percy Jackson books. Going into the movie, I had no expectations whatsoever and knew only what I read in the synopsis and saw in the pre-released clips.
With that little fact out of the way, let me tell you what I thought of Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief: It was an awful movie.
The story seemed like it was told by a teenage who is into fantasy but doesn’t really know how to weave a proper tale. The sequence of events felt forced and quite frankly lacked any semblance of logic at times. From the moment young Percy finds out who he really is, we are treated to an insipid, unoriginal and at times incomprehensible combination of scenes that at time just made me want to get out of my seat and walk out. The funny thing about the story is that it was not the worst part of the movie.
The worst part of the movie was the ridiculously shallow and amateurish acting. Aside from Logan Lerman who plays Percy, the rest of the cast just seemed to be standing awkwardly delivering lines. Alexandra Daddario who plays Annabeth was just cringy at the best of times. Her fight scenes was sooo choreographed that you could almost count the beats and Brandon T. Jackson who plays Grover seemed unconformable playing the same token black guy character that he played in Tropic Thunder. Even the big name actors like Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, Uma Thurman were just flat at best if not just plain bad.
The only shining light in the entire movie was Logan Lerman. As much as he was given stupid lines to read and dumb scenes to play, I actually liked how he portrayed the character. I started being a fan of his on the short-lived TV show Jack & Bobby, and I still think that this kid has mad potential. I was hoping that this movie would be his breakout movie but I am afraid that it might not hit the mark.
Overall, I think that you should avoid going to see Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief at the theaters. Don’t even rent it. If you really want to watch it, just wait for it to make it to your cable channel in a year or two. You will be better off.
I am a big fan of the Percy Jackson books and quite frankly the movie did not live up to expectations. The plot was completely changed from the plot in the book. In The Lightning Thief book, Percy is searching for the bolt, but in the movie, it is merely a “quest” for three pearls. The characters should have been twelve years old but they were all in their twenties, which made the movie lose it’s magical charm. Also, many of the characters were not right for the parts they played (such as Alexandria Daddario playing Annabeth, Brandon T. Jackson playing Grover, and Jake Abel playing Luke). I feel Chris Columbus made Annabeth less smart then the twelve-year-old in Annabeth in the book, and that Grover was not the wimpy little satyr-kid that he should have been. The relationship between Percy and Annabeth was not a friendship,as it should have been; it was definitively a boyfriend/girlfriend thing in the movie. I believe that the movie was anti-climactic, and missed out on some of the most vital points of the book such as the stirring war between the Titans and the gods. The movie does not explain about the prophecy that Percy was in, nor the oath between the “Big Three” gods. Overall, the movie was weak compared to the book. I do not recommend seeing it, especially if you have not read the books. Instead, go to your local library, pick up Percy Jackson #1, and sit there for two hours reading it. It is a hilarious book and ten times better then the movie, I assure you.