Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

It's hard not to watch Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief without thinking of Harry Potter. Much of the template is the same--young man who feels vaguely out of place in the real world, with a miserable home life, discovers he is something special and gets sent to a place where others are like him. He makes special friends--one male, one female. Meanwhile evil creatures are after him.

The difference is that J.K. Rowling created Harry Potter's world from whole cloth, while Percy Jackson's creator, Rick Riordan, used the Greek myths. This makes the entire thing somewhat more educational, if anything. Over the course of the film we see satyrs, centaurs, furies, Medusa, a Hydra, and a variety of Gods. If this sends kids to Bullfinch's Mythology, it's not a bad thing.

The plot centers around a squabble between Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Zeus thinks that Poseidon's son, Percy, stole his lighting bolt. Why he thinks this is unclear. Hades kidnaps Percy's mother (Catherine Keener), and he needs to find a series of pearls to be able to go into the underworld and back out again. As he searches for the pearls we get some drollery, such as Uma Thurman as Medusa (she began her career as Aphrodite--thus is the manner in which an actress ages), having the lotus-eaters operate a Las Vegas casino, and the entrance to Hades underneath the Hollywood sign.

But the film has a kind of perfunctory attitude. The action scenes are nothing to write home about, and the direction, by Chris Columbus, who did a Harry Potter film, lacks spark. The young actor Logan Lerman plays Percy without too much charisma, and neither Brandon T. Jackson as the satyr or Alexandra Daddario, as Athena's daughter, don't offer much to the proceedings, either.

The film is definitely centered toward young people, especially those who might know who Zeus and Poseidon are, which I imagine is a pretty small demographic. Those kids might enjoy the film, but for adults it's a bit of a yawn.