Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
If you’re looking for a review to tell you whether or not your twelve-year old will like this movie, this isn’t it. I’m the wrong man for the job. When I was twelve, I was watching Robocop and Predator. I had no idea then what the average twelve year-old likes, nor do I now. The only thing I can do is write from my analytical perspective. I leave it to you, the reader, to decide whether or not the information I present tells you this will or won’t appeal to you or your child. Otherwise, read no further.
The film opens with Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), Greek god of the sea, materializing from a harbor near Manhattan. Unbeknownst to Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), a teenager with ADHD and dyslexia (or so he believes), Poseidon is his biological father; Percy is short for Perseus. This is the first in a series, not unlike the Harry Potter books, that thrusts teenagers with special abilities into extraordinary circumstances in modern times. In this case, Percy and others like him are born “half-bloods,” demigods—one human and one Olympian parent. The Twelve Olympians, or Dodekatheon, reside in a floating Mt. Olympus suspended in the skies above the Empire State Building. Their present conundrum: Someone has stolen the lightning from Zeus.
The bigger problem, I think, is that someone else stole the thunder from this movie. The possibilities seem exciting having Sean Bean as Zeus, or chronicling the birth of Poseidon and the defeat of Kronos—mentioned only in passing. The plot centers around a brewing war between the Olympians, which like many things in mythology is spurred by drama completely and knowingly manufactured by pernicious, capricious gods and goddesses. But the film never gets into that drama. Instead, it trudges onward with three principal characters, two male and one female (sound familiar?), in a quest not so much to save the world as to save Percy’s mother (Catherine Keener) from Hades (Steve Coogan, nicely cast as a heavy metal version of the god of the Underworld).
Neither his mother, nor his friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), immediately explains to him the true nature of his being, even after he is attacked by a substitute teacher who turns into a winged demon, erroneously referred to in the film as a “fury.” Furies are from Roman mythology— Erinýes in Greek. But never mind. Percy’s true calling isn’t really explained to him until it’s dramatically convenient, i.e. at the last possible second. With all the trouble Grover and Percy’s teacher, Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan), go to while protecting Percy’s identity from discovery, why on earth would the Olympians name a safe-haven for demigods in training “Camp Half-Blood”?
I find some elements of the film interesting. Take, for instance, the budding romance between Percy and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), daughter of Athena (Melina Kanakaredes). In the mythology, Athena never had offspring. She was Athena Parthenos, the virgin—hence “Parthenon,” a temple to her virginity. But, again, never mind. Annabeth is a typical female adventure character. She’s unbroken by men, disciplined, tough, and the one guy who infuriates her most is the same with whom she exchanges glances of muted lust. There’s more passion, however, in one look from Ms. Daddario than in an entire two hours of Kristen Stewart blinking uncontrollably at the dull, lifeless, Robert Pattinson.
The heroes’ quest takes them toward Atlantic City, Las Vegas and finally Hollywood—amusingly to the tune of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”—to find the way into and out of the Underworld. First, they stop at Auntie M’s Garden Gnome Emporium. I don’t know how quickly the audience noticed, but instantly I recognized the “M” could only refer to Medusa, played with alacrity by Uma Thurman who revels in over-the-top delivery (see Poison Ivy in the transcendentally-awful Batman & Robin). I thought there was a missed opportunity by not introducing her, swaggering into frame, to Motley Crüe’s “Looks That Kill”—from the band’s edgier, faux-Satanic days.
The film is probably going to entertain somebody in a throwaway fashion—good for at least one viewing. But it might also alienate readers of the book series. It’s inevitable that scores of hardcore fans of a franchise will compare the book to the film, and will nitpick at any differences. I haven’t read the book, but I could hear such discussion during the end credits. But that’s not my concern. A film can be good in its own right, irrespective of how it treats the source material. I did like that the movie, the first adaptation of a five-novel series, doesn’t resort to carting out characters one-by-one for ham-fisted introductions, rather than establishing them as players in an ongoing story.
What bothers me is the actors, writer Craig Titley, and director, Chris Columbus, seem to be phoning it in. No major sacrifices have to be made (more on that later) or suffered, and thus very little dramatic tension builds between the two leads who are supposed to fall typically—I mean madly—in love. That Annabeth has never known her mother, Athena, seems to be forgotten by the time the two meet at Mt. Olympus—a hello and a single sentence expressing how proud mother is. Playing Luke, the son of Hermes, Jake Abel appears to have attended the Shane Brolly School of Voice Immodulation. He delivers his lines with varying degrees of indifference—odd, given his character’s supposed anger over divine absentee parents. The entire plot, which I won’t spoil, takes the long way around if you know Greek mythology: Luke’s father is the guide to the Underworld.
I also wondered if kids will care about nuances of Olympian mythology, most importantly the distinction from modern, Western theology; gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon were fallible, egocentric, at times blatantly selfish, and most often tragically-flawed. This aspect isn’t explored more deeply, and that’s unfortunate. Despite so much epic drama in Greek mythology from which to borrow, here we are given little sense of the magnitude of the clash between the quarrelsome gods—the very motivation for the plot.
The message more likely to come across is one the Entitlement Generation can appreciate: You are born special. Don’t worry, opportunity will fall out of the sky, into your lap. You need not truly work to achieve anything.
Ultimately, the characters’ actions have no binding consequences because Zeus or Persephone (Rosario Dawson), or any other god, could just bail them out at the last second. That sort of falsely-inflated drama pales in comparison to the real mythology, in which a major theme was that actions had lasting consequences. When each character has a safety net waiting just past the edge of the page, we can’t feel that anything is ever really at stake. Consequently, we can’t feel engaged and suspended in disbelief when there was nothing substantial to believe in the first place.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 • Running Time: 119 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG for action violence and peril, some scary images and suggestive material, and mild language. • Distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation