Movie Review: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson Movie Review

Have you ever heard of this movie called harry potter? Ok, this isn't it. LOL No seriously, in a 3 word review, this movie attempts to do the fantasy / modern movie style to utter failure. But, and hold your horses right here. I liked it. ZOMG. How could I, who hates everything, like a movie? When there is a pearl among so much trash, sometimes the pearl outshines everything. And, what was the pearl in this movie? Brandon T. Jackson. He showed up everyone in the movie, in every scene, even Uma Thurman was bland compared to him. Look at the pic of the lead character, doesn't that look like a Potter clone?



Let's get to the review.

So Percy Jackson (played by Logan Lerman) starts out with 2 gods meeting, Zeus (played by Sean Bean from Lord of the Rings ) and Poseidon (played by Kevin McKidd of Trainspotting ), apparently someone has stolen Zeus lightning rod and he accuses Poseidon's son of stealing it. Zeus gives an ultimatum that should he not have his mojo in 14 days there will be a god war. That sounds 10 better than what it looked like in the movie. In the movie 2 human actors, dressed in regular clothes, are talking on the roof of a building. ... what? Did this movie not have a budget?

Anyway, cut to school and the main character Percy is apparently not great in school, the letters move around on the board when he looks at them. His best friend Grover Underwood (played by Brandon T. Jackson of Tropic Thunder), who has some sort of leg problem and uses crutches, walks him home. At home his mother is married to some smelly, guy (played by Joe Pantoliano of The Matrix) we all immediately dislike (hello type casting).

Cut! The entire opening is regular people walking around in regular clothing.

Next day in school they are on a field trip at a museum. The substitute teach calls Percy into a secret room in the museum. She then turns into a harpy-like creature, servant of Hades and demands he return the lightning rod.

The jig is up. Percy didn't know anything about who he is, and is rushed off to demi-god camp, where he is informed his dad is Poseidon and he is half human half god. The leader of the camp is Chiron (played by Pierce Brosnan) a centaur, and Grover turns out to be a satyr and does not have a leg problem, but simply used the crutches as a cover for his goat half from the waist down. At the camp they meet Annabeth Chase daughter of Athena (played by Alexandra Daddario d), Luke Castellan son of Hermes (played by Jake Abel). When Hades appears in the form of a fiery demon, for some reason, and shows that he has Percy's mom in Hades, and threatens him if he doesn't bring him the lightning rod, Percy decides to leave the kid demi-god camp and go to Hades. He gets nowhere and the Grover and Annabeth accompany him. However, they are both useless without Luke giving them several useful items to get the job done.

What Sucked

This movie tries to be what Harry Potter is for witchcraft, for Greek mythology. However, instead of painting an intricate world that intrinsically is intertwined with the mortal modern world, it simply just goes back and forth. Instead of it really delving into Greek mythology, which is RICH in story, background, feeling and psyche, it just shows you a hydra in the middle of Nashville. Instead of them exploring what has happened for the past 2,000 years, it puts Medusa (played by Uma Thurman) in the middle of a flower shop. [nice cameo by her, by the way, the make up was flawless, she looked good enough to eat, snake hair and all.]

It is so obvious that the movie was trying to create a new Harry Potter rip off franchise. It stayed in the modern way too much. I mean, I like my fantasy genre movies to have ... I don't know... fantastical creatures? ... fantastical settings? ... fantastical dialogue? Come on, Medusa in a flower shop? Chiron in a day camp? Really?

The acting was god, friggin, burning on a stick, awful, except for Brandon. The script was just shameful. For instance, they go to Vegas and they are almost done with their journey to get to Hades. A cocktail waitress walks up to them and offers them cookies. COOKIES? Really? We then are treated to a drug induced, psychedelic trip. Wait, but here is how it plays out:

Cocktail Waitress: here try a lotus cookie on the house
Percy: sure
Grover: OK
Annabeth: sure
[start trippy music and blur effect on lights]
*giggle*
Percy: woah we should stay here

Really?

What Worked in the Movie

Brandon T. Jackson! That's it. Everyone else were bad. Brandon brought his A. game. It is obvious this kid wants to be in real movies. He had energy and is naturally funny anyway. The entire movie is boring, hands down. Brandon steals every scene and livens up the mood. In the action scenes you feel like there is action, in funny scenes he's funny, in sad scenes he's sad.

I think there was some bad casting in the movie. The guy that played Luke was only in a couple of scenes in the movie. He was far superior than the lead. The lead played like he was in Twilight the movie, throughout the entire show. He moped around and was so full of "angst". Luke had angst as well, but you actually understood his angst and he acted it out perfectly. Percy was ... "oh my dad left when I was a kid". Regardless of the fact that the mother explained it and said she understood. They should have switched Luke as the lead, who looked much more similar to the actor that played Poseidon anyway, and have the lead play Luke, since he was quite good at sniveling.

It was great that Grover was a satyr the entire movie. He also was a lady's man and a skirt chaser. You were able to understand that half-way through the movie. The other character? 2 dimensional, you had no idea what they were about.

While Percy and Annabeth were deciding if they were going to kiss or run each other through, throughout the entire movie, Grover had gender with Hades' (Played by Steve Coogan) wife Persephone (played by Rosario Dawson). [Jesus Christ on a stick that woman is hot, come slap me, I can't get her out of my mind.]

Conclusion

Go see this in theaters? NO, but do rent it. I wouldn't even recommend buying the DVD, but I do recommend renting it.

If you love Greek mythology, it's a crap shoot either way. If you just love anything Greek mythology wise, see it. But, if you are a Greek mythology geek, then I don't recommend you see it, it is rather lacking in that area as a whole.

For pure entertainment, watching Brandon T. Jackson is very entertaining.

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