Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
Forgive me for being slightly outside the demographic for the PERCY JACKSON books that are apparently quite popular among the teenagers. And having once been a teen obsessed with Greek mythology, I can fully understand the level of passion some kids might feel about this modern retelling of the adventures of the Perseus myth populated largely by gods and teenagers. And even if your film history knowledge is surface level, then you also know that this is essentially a remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS, but populated by hormonally challenged youngsters. I like the concept of PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF more than the finished product, but what we're left with isn't altogether unwatchable even if it is completely lacking in depth, substance, or character development.
My initial problems with this movie begin with its premise. Apparently somebody has stolen Zeus' master lightning bolt (the only side effect that I could see was that thunderstorms aren't accompanied by a light show) and the leader of the gods of Mt. Olympus is pissed. For reasons that are never quite explained (actually, quite a bit of the plot isn't explained; it just is), Zeus (Sean Bean) blames the son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd from "Rome"), a boy named Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman, recently seen in GAMER and 3:10 TO YUMA), who isn't even aware that his whore of a human mother (the utterly wasted Catherine Keener) had sex with the god of the sea. Okay, explain this. Zeus and Poseidon have this initial conversation about the missing lightning bolt being on earth on top of a building. Why? Don't know. It's never explained. A better title for this film might have been THE PLOT THIEF.
Suddenly, the entire god community is after Percy because they think he has the lightning. So his mother sends Percy off to what can only be described as demigod camp, along with his best friend from school, Grover, (Brandon T. Jackson from TROPIC THUNDER) who we learn is a satyr and Percy's protector. The camp is a ridiculous place run by a centaur named Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan; yes, the former James Bond plays a half-man/half-horse creature), and it is there that Percy is trained to go out into the world and find out who really stole the lightning. At the camp, he meets the hottest girl there, Athena's daughter Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), and the pair plus Grover set out to save the world (and Percy's useless mother, who has been kidnapped by Hades).
Director Chris Columbus is probably exactly the right person to tackle this material, having a proven track record getting decent performances out of young actors in such works as the first two HOME ALONE movies, ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING, MRS. DOUBTFIRE, and the first two HARRY POTTER films (he also did last year's I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER, but we won't speak of that). But there's something slightly desperate about the film as it tries in vain to seem hip and youthful. Lerman plays Percy like a bit of a cocky douche, Jackson must resign himself to playing a cliché sidekick, and Daddario has a heaving bosom. That's really all I took away from their characters.
In fact, there were only two scenes in THE LIGHTNING THIEF that I even half-heartedly enjoyed. One features Uma Thurman as a dominatrix-style Medusa, with a few dozen very aggressive snakes in her hair that not only swirl around her head but, if she gets close enough to you, start entangling themselves in yours as well. It's a great creep-out moment. The other decent sequence occurs when the trio makes their way to the underworld and meet Hades, played as a sort of aging rock star by Steve Coogan, with his scheming lady friend Persephone (Rosario Dawson) by his side. But for every successful attempt at entertainment, we get two or three truly awful moments or performances, such as Joe Pantoliano as Percy's stereotypically evil stepfather. Even the moment when Percy makes it to Olympus to return the lightning is a huge let down. Oh look, "CSI: NY's" Melina Kanakaredes shows up as Athena and does...nothing but look purdy.
I think it's fair to say that the HARRY POTTER films set the standard for this type of fantasy storytelling, in which the lead characters are teens or slightly older, and honestly no other attempted film series has even come close. Look at THE GOLDEN COMPASS, or the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA movies, or THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT. None of these even come close to what Potter has built, for the pure and simple reason that those films don't try to appeal to families or kids. Each of those movies was made with the intention of being a great movie, not a great one for a certain demographic. Kids don't need their movies to talk down to them; they want characters they can aspire to be, not ones just like them or more than likely a lot less intelligent. THE LIGHTNING THIEF has no idea what teens are like, so it doesn't even bother to inject its character with anything resembling emotional content or its story with anything remotely like logic or consistency. I'd rather you skip this and go check out AVATAR again if you must see a film with minimal depth.
-- Capone
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