Review: Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Christopher Columbus (along with Hollywood) believes that creating stereotypical American teenage kids, adding flashy visuals and throwing in some respected veteran actors and actresses is enough to make a film. This is definitely not the case and The Lightning Thief suffers badly because of this: it’s incoherent, it jumps from one scenario to the next, it lacks raw emotion and it exhibits barely any acting talent. Even the likes of Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman & Joe Pantoliano are below par.
The film seems intent on reaching out to its target audience by throwing in product placement and references to current trends. One scene has a character playing the video game Modern Warfare 2 and while I’m all for creating a realistic environment, having the camera pan out to deliberately show the game on a television screen, as well as having one of the characters say “welcome to the modern world” whilst positioned in front of the television screen with the game quite clearly visible behind him is just woeful.
The same scene has Converse trainers with wings on them but the context in which they are presented doesn’t fit, whilst the next needlessly product places the television show Extreme Makeover and the iPhone: the film seems intent on connecting with the youth audience even at the cost of inconsistency and narrative problems. It’s like the producers expect you to sit back submit to the commercialism.
The film takes you through teenage demi-god Percy Jackson’s journey to find three pearls needed to help him travel to Olympus. He is falsely accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning bolt (the most powerful weapon in existence) and has 14 days to find and return it or Zeus will start a war of the Gods, primarily between himself and his brother (and Percy’s father) Poseidon.
The Greek mythology behind the story should have worked well on the big screen but the plot is something else that seems to have been affected largely by what makes money instead (especially with the scenes in Las Vegas). The soundtrack seems to have been heavily influenced by any record label willing to pay the biggest fee for their artists to feature and the nauseating stereotypes are forced onto you far too much.
Three characters that were needlessly characterised from a marketing standpoint, particularly the one on the left. His character is atrocious.
The film attempts to modernise Greek mythology but it fails so miserably at doing so – it makes the whole film incredibly unengaging. A line in the film is “I didn’t expect you to look like this” – that sentiment is an echoed feeling while watching the film. If it was done well enough then maybe it would be worth watching (Daybreakers is a modern take on an old idea but at least it’s watchable) but the way that The Lightning Thief depicts the ancient Greek gods is quite frankly horrible. It tries to make Greek mythology modernised but whatever positive twist you can put on this is a lost cause because the outcome is abysmal.
Medusa is a leather coat and sunglasses-wearing femme fatale, Hades looks like a 70s rock star and Zeus is Sean Bean – these concepts sound good on paper but they are so poorly executed. It’s a shame that the experienced actors in the film are reduced to playing bit part characters that even the best actors couldn’t do justice – the scriptwriting and characterisations are awful.
The acting as a whole is generally bad with the script and story not doing anyone any favors whatsoever. One of the characters quips “we’re in a recession”. The believability of this film is laughable and lines like this do little to help – the character who says this only moments earlier pulls $170 out of his pocket like it was loose change.
The film is run by the money behind it ($95 million worth) and the producers know exactly where the profit will come from: remaining relevant and topical to the key demographic is more important from a fiscal perspective than actual cinematic value and the film suffers massively because of this ethos.
The likes of Pierce Brosnan can't do anything to save this film from its own shortcomings.
The only redemption that the money brings is in the form of occasionally impressive CGI visuals. Places like the Underworld and creatures like the Hydra are impressively animated and while this is good to look at we know that films can never be good just from having strong visuals.
This film is very much a supermodel with a fake personality and no redeeming personality traits: lacking sophistication and relying solely on how it looks, it somehow manages to become a success because of people in society who don’t see past the perceived perfection.
Overall Impressions:
I got exactly what I expected from The Lightning Thief: a bumpy, uninteresting film full of teenage angst, a poorly constructed plot line, abysmal acting and a heavy reliance on special effects that is supposed to suddenly make the film brilliant but doesn’t.
Hollywood lately is thinking with its wallet: it seems content to alienate itself from true cinematography for the sake of satisfying the demographic of young girls and boys who are looking for cheap thrills, actors and actresses they find attractive and stereotypes which kids feel they should associate to. Films like The Lightning Thief are money-makers that can be stretched into a franchise and can be used to take pocket money from the people who fall victim to the glamorisation of youth culture.
The makers of these films even have the cheek to use well respected experienced actors and actresses and pass these films off as fun for all the family. As for the fact that the story was created from a book: the word “adaptation” should be used very loosely here. Whilst I haven’t read the book I can safely say that aside from character names, the odd place and the core story I’d be surprised if anything else was taken from the book because this film is one huge corporate money-spinner.
The Lightning Thief is just one film in a long line of commercialised Hollywood franchises where real cinematic values get pushed aside for the sake of money-creating stereotypes. If you appreciate films, stay away from this (but don’t try and stop your kids from going because then they won’t be cool anymore). This film left me with a very bitter feeling and for anymore who appreciates watching films with at least some cinematography that isn’t all flash and no class, you’ll be left with that same feeling too.
Rating: 
Yeah, confirms the fears I always have when a book is adapted into a film, it’s taken parts from multiple books in the series and just thrown them in anywhere, looks like the one thing they have taken from the books is the part about the converse shoes. The part about the three pearls appears nowhere in any of the books and the actual journey to Olympus takes up about 5 pages.