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Pery Jackson and the Olympians is a wildly successful series of children's books that owes a great deal to J.K. Rowling. One can't help but see the similary between Percy and Harry Potter--at least in the movies. (I haven't read the series so I can't tell you if the same parallels exist in the books but I suspect they do: still, not having read the books it wouldn't be fair to comment further so I'll keep my comments to what I saw on screen.) Like Harry Potter before him Percy Jackson doesn't fit in (although Percy at least has ONE living parent.) Percy learns that he is "special" (in this case the son of Poseidon) and is thrust into danger because someone has stolen Zeus' lightning bolt: if said bolt is not returned by the Summer Solstice there will be war among the Gods and mankind will suffer for it. What follows is a textbook "quest" and final reconciliation.
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Percy Jackson commits three unforgiveable crimes: zero originality, a complete lack of surprise and some stunning lapses in logic. True, there are only so many plots a writer can use but the script pretty well telegraphs everything. You can see the slightest twist coming from a mile away. You even do this with the jokes: you know there's going to be a "horse's ass" joke coming as soon as one of the characters is revealed to be a Centaur. Nowhere in the movie does anything take a turn that anyone with half a brain wouldn't expect. (The identity of the Thief isn't revealed but you can't help but know who it is almost as soon as he shows up on screen.: worse, his reasons for stealing the lightning are the tritest of trite.) Worse the lapses in internal logic nearly sink the story for anyone over the age of eight. (Who knows? Maybe the books do a better job of answering my many, many questions but, alas, I can only report what I saw on screen.)
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The Actors aren't given much to work with (reference the previous paragraph) but they give it their all and help rescue the movie from being complete drek. Every British Character Actor living in the United States gets tapped for a part as well as hotties Uma Therman (in an all-too-brief scene as Medusa) and Rosario Dawson (playing Persoephone as a hottie who ends ups helping our hero.) The three young leads are earnest and do as good a job as the material will allow. We've seen the special effects before but they are adequate to the test and I did rather like the way the worked the mythological elements inot the "real" world.
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As a "popcorn movie" Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightning Thief worke well enough: the kids will enjoy the action and there is enough material to entertain adults. The violence is cartoonish and the blood is kept to a minimum so it should be safe for the whole family (except for the most delicate of souls). Your world won't be diminished if you miss this movie but it's OK if you have nothing better to do.
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FINAL GRADE: C
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