I always joke it's a good thing writers still write great books because otherwise there would hardly be any movies in the theaters anymore. The catch-22 of that is, the movies typically fail to live up to the book's standards, or to the fan base's expectations.
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" is different. The book, similar to the "Twilight" series, really is not good enough to make a movie - despite having some ridiculously large fan base and being on the New York Times Best Sellers List.
To Rick Riordan's credit, the changes made by director Chris Columbus (directed the first two "Harry Potter's"...enough said), did not help. Perhaps in hopes of making the film more accessible to a wider audience, Jackson made the kids teenagers instead of 10-year-olds-a weak marketing ploy.
The premise of the books in itself has potential. Basically, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) discovers his identity as a demigod, Poseidon's son, and he has to come to terms with being a part of the Greek gods' world. The movie follows his adventures of having to find Zeus' lightning bolt, which was stolen and mistakenly believed to have been stolen by Percy.
If the movie does one thing fairly accurately, it's the portrayal of Greek gods as selfish and egotistical. Earth always was sort of just a playground for them, so starting a war that would ruin earth isn't such a big concern. But for Percy, whose mother is mortal, the destruction of earth does matter.
But the plotline just doesn't quite work for a movie, at least definitely not with a director like Chris Columbus. After Percy discovers his demigod identity, he also finds out his school friend Grover (Brandon Jackson) is his 'protector' and a satyr (half-goat, half-man), who at least provides some comic relief to the film.
Soon after starting his tenure at Camp Half Blood (try not to think of Harry Potter, the story really is original...that is if you've never read, seen or heard anything about Harry Potter), Percy meets Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), Athena's daughter. Soon, the trio break the rules, leave camp and go on a quest to save Percy's mom-trapped in the underworld by Haitis.
And so starts their adventures, which unfortunately also lack a certain intrigue. Uma Thurman really should just not be an actress; her role as Medusa solidified my feelings about her complete lack of talent. By the time they make it to the underworld, you're ready for one of two things: the movie to be over, or for something really interesting to happen. Neither does, and so the disappointment continues.
The real problem for the people hoping to make money off this movie is the attempt to target an older audience, which will not be able to take the story seriously, and in doing so made some of the creatures too scary for the 10-year-olds who actually read the books. I hope, for their sakes, the books are more entertaining and original than the haphazard film.[[In-content Ad]]
