Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is a 16 or 17 year old (though he and the other characters are all around 12 in the book) who struggles in school due to dyslexia and ADHD. It's not long, however, before he finds out that these are only symptoms of the fact that he is indeed half god. Too bad he finds out because he's suspected of stealing Zeus's master bolt and had lots of scary creatures suddenly trying to kill him. Good thing he has his wheel chair bound teacher Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan) and crippled best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) who just happen to be Chiron the centaur and a satyr assigned to be his (junior) protector in disguise. Anyone see a theme of looking at disabilities in a positive light here?
As the first half of the book flashes by in the blink of any eye we find Percy at Camp Half Blood, frenemies with Athena's Daughter Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and off on a quest to save his mother who is being held by Hades (Steve Coogan) accompanied by Grover and Annabeth with the help of Herme's son Luke (Jake Abel). This and more happens in about the first 15 minutes and I haven't even talked about the exposition scene with Zeus (Sean Bean) and Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), his mother's (Catherine Keener) death, his step father's (Joe Pantoliano) disgustingness, the minotaur, the fury, the car chase, sword fights, capture the flag and Percy's revelation of his heritage and powers. The book dragged these things out excruciatingly, keeping the extremely obvious a secret with blatant hints that made you scream "I get it already!" but the movie blazes through all set up so fast that any scene that could have developed any character at all or given any sort of logic to the proceedings is lost.
It's a hard to figure out how such an all star cast, which also includes Uma Thurman as Medusa and Rosario Dawson as Persephone, got involved in such a stinker. I can only imagine that "Harry Potter" was thrown around a lot. As in, "this is the next Harry Potter," and " Chris Columbus directed a Harry Potter movie too!" I was not that impressed with the book, though I thought the ideas had promise. The movie ignored much of the book, but not in a good way. It changed things that mattered as well as random other things for seemingly no reason. Entire parts of the quest are cut out and a new scene involving the Parthenon is added in. I assume the writers didn't want to waste a perfectly good free set in Nashville. I realize that the characters have been aged a bit to make it seem like less of a kid movie, but even if they are a bit older than their 12 year old literature counterparts, does casting a 26 year old in the role make any sense? All of the actors are way older than their characters. There is just about zero character development, and the acting from even experienced players is like mushy cardboard.
One thing that I was impressed with was the sword play. Too bad Percy was supposed to suck at using a sword instead of being instantly awesome with no training whatsoever.
There is one demographic that will enjoy this movie. Very young children who like fantasy action, could care less about the plot, and have not read the book. This joins the likes of Eragon and City of Ember as one of the worst book to movie adaptations ever.
*(1/5 stars)
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