Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Ahem, another thing, I do occasionally watch some movies. So, after my exams got over yesterday, my friends and I bundled into a couple of cars and went to Ambience Mall, in Gurgaon to catch 2 movies (the plan eventually fell through. So after a quick bite, and a heated decision over which movie to watch, we decided on Percy Jackson.

This decision was of course, influenced to some degree by the fact that there were some Percy Jackson fans in the group. Thing is, we were late for the My Name is Khan show anyway, so we didn’t really have much of a choice.

My Rating : 2/5

Directed by : Chris Columbus
Featuring : Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Jake Abel, Pierce Brosnan, Catherine Keener, Uma Thurman, Sean Bean

OK, for the uninitiated, like me, Percy Jackson is a series of books by Rick Riordan, and this movie, is based on the first of the series – The Lightning Thief.

The movie’s basically about what happens when a God and a mortal get busy i.e. demi-gods. Percy Jackson is a demi-God, which is apparent right from the outset of the movie, and our little hero has to fight seemingly insurmountable odds to prove himself.

Fine, so the movie has some really unbelievable stuff, like airborne-Converse shoes, and Uma Thurman with snakes for hair, but overall, the movie moves at a relentless pace. Unlike the books, there’s hardly any humour in the movie. It’s just a constant blur of fight and flee, which is not all that bad.

The graphics are pulled off quite well. Especially water. I can tell that it’s not that easy to refract light through water that realistically, but they did it quite well.

Logan Lerman, who plays Percy Jackson, doesn’t really come across as a demigod at any point, just another scrawny American teenager with an overdone accent. Alexandra Daddario does a decent job of the don’t-you-mess-with-me-or-I’ll-cut-your-vegetables-off, but not a particularly memorable performance. Brandon T. Jackson, who does Grover (who’s a mutant half-goat-half-man a.k.a satyr) would’ve done a better job, if his role was scripted better. It’s nothing but a constant flow of stereotypical I’m-the-black-guy-I-talk-with-a-swagger-and-keep-repeating-y’know-what-i’m-sayin. Honestly, that was definitely overdone. Apart from that, Pierce Brosnan and the others, like Steve Coogan, do a pretty OK job, but again, nothing that memorable.

If you’re a die-hard Percy Jackson fan, I might suggest avoiding this movie, or else, at least take someone along to restrain you and fit a muzzle on your mouth, at least, that’s what I was doing with 2 of my friends. They were constantly bemoaning the fact that the movie has very little to do with the book, which is inevitable what happens each time a book is adapted into a movie. But for someone like me, who hasn’t read the book it was a fun movie to watch. I’m now going to borrow the books and read them to find out for myself exactly how convoluted the story really is.

But the fact remains that this movie has little or no replay value. So it’s nice to see it once, but only once.

SPOILER ALERT — SPOILER ALERT — SPOILER ALERT

Some details of the plot may be mentioned below.

So the story goes like this – young Percy, is a dyslexic boy, with ADHD, without the faintest inkling that he’s the son of Posiedon, the water God. What he does find out is that he’s not dylexic, just that he can read ancient runes better than English. Plus, the fact that his substitute English teacher is a fury with a rather nasty face, who wants the ‘lightning bolt’ back (poor Percy is completely confused by this), and that his best pal, Grover, doesn’t use crutches cause he can’t walk, but because he’s half-goat. This is followed by a spirited sprint to a camp, just off the highway, for demigods. Naturally, a light sprinkling of mythological creatures can be expected, and a Minotaur is quickly dispatched off. Percy’s mom, played by Catherine Keener, naturally, can’t get through the barrier, because she’s mortal, and this trend does continue, with her running full tilt into invisible barriers and then just moaning that she can’t come with her son, and that he must go on, and all that sentimental malarkey.

Then Percy has his ass whipped by femme-fatale-Jr. Annabeth, daughter of Athena.  This is followed by young Percy discovering that water turns him into a warrior of sorts. Then he gets to know Mom’s held prisoner in the underworld and naturally, he embarks on a quest with the crazy chick and the satyr. They do stop by Luke’s place, who lends Percy a shield.

This is followed by scampering over North America in a Ford Transit, finding little pearls to help them find their way to the underworld. On the way, they encounted Medusa (Uma Therman), who like gargoyles more than people, a Hyrda and they get high in a casino, and steal a Maserati. All this while, Gods prepare for war (cue stormy clouds).

All this while, Percy’s dad Posiedon, whispers advice into his ear, despite the fact that they’ve never seen each other. Plus, whenever Percy tries to exert his control over water, he does look quite constipated, without fail. Oh yeah, and the entrance to the Underworld is in Hollywood. I don’t particularly mind that, it’s just that does it have to between the letters of the Hollywood hill sign?!

This if followed by a round of unsuccessful negotiation with Hades, Percy’s uncle, who’s kept his mom prisoner. And voila, out of nowhere the ‘lightning bolt’ pops out of the shield. A considerable amount of confusion and back-stabbing later, they get rid of Hades, and using the 3 pearls, wing their way back to the Empire State Building, which is the gateway to Olympus, besides other things. Grover gets left behind, because there were only 3 pearls and Percy’s mom had to come as well, plus he found a rather nice lady friend in the underworld, and didn’t mind spending some private time with her.

Naturally, returning the lightning bolt to the gods wasn’t going to be that easy. So Luke turns up with another pair of flying Convers shoes, and they battle it out for the bold. By the way, Luke’s purportedly the real Lightning Thief. The best part is when cornered, Percy smashes a couple of water tankers, and Luke tries to fight it with the lightning bolt. Ideally, this is a recipe for disaster, but that’s for mere mortals I guess. The graphics are best at this point, the water effects are done pretty well.

Again, after returning to the Empire State Building, they get on an elevator of sorts to Olympus. Naturally Mom does the I-can’t-come-further-go-on-Percy thing again, and then Percy returns the bold and has a little one-on-one chat with his Dad, who basically abandoned him. All is well, end of story. They return to the camp, train a bit more, sexual tension between Annabeth and Percy and that’s it. The End.