Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

 

 I saw Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief almost a week ago, and since then I've been stalling and putting off writing any kind of analysis about it. After pacing around for a while tonight, it finally hit me. I can't figure out what to say about this movie because I actually have nothing to say about it. Good, bad, indifferent... I can't seem to get a firm handle on anything about this movie. I sat there the full 118 minute run-time, got up, went about my day, and never gave the experience another moment's thought. I always come out of a movie feeling at least a little something, whether it be joy or angst or pain or disgust... but never have I come out of a movie-going experience so apathetic to what I just watched. Congratulations, Percy Jackson. If nothing else, you've opened up an entirely new movie experience to me.

The film itself, you won't be surprised to learn (if you needed to learn it like I did), is an adaptation of Rick Riordan's novel of the same name. It's the first in a series of five novels, and having not read the novel I can't attest to how faithfully the movie follows the mythology of the book. The movie itself starts out with a conversation between Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) and Zeus (Sean Bean), in which Zeus accuses Poseidon's kid of stealing his master bolt, which is the thing that all other lightning bolts are modeled off of. Zeus states that if it's not returned in two weeks, war's going to break out. From there, we meet Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) on a field trip to see an exhibit on Greek and Roman art. Of course. He's attacked by a Fury and rescued by his Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan), who gives him a pen that turns into a sword to protect him. Mr. Brunner instructs Percy's friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), who is actually a satyr, to take Percy to Camp Half-Blood, where Percy can learn everything about who he is and what his abilities are. Percy's mother accompanies them to the camp, but upon arrival they're attacked by a minotaur who takes Percy's mother prisoner. That sets off Percy's journey to find the master bolt and save his mother, all the while stopping a war from breaking out between the Gods that would put the Earth in danger.

If the story feels a little teeny bit like Harry Potter, it's likely no coincidence. The books were written after Harry Potter's rise to popularity, and the movie feels very much like a movie trying to cash in on the tween demographic. The movie makes no secret about who its target audience is, which is likely why it just seemed to lose me. What Percy Jackson lacks is the depth and human touches that made Harry Potter so resonant and accessible to every generation. My grandmother is 66 years old, and she loves the Harry Potter series. I have no doubts that she would just as quickly shrug off Percy Jackson as I did. I can't say that the movie is poorly paced. I can't say that the set pieces aren't kind of neat to look at, or the characters are poorly acted, or the dialogue is harsh, or the plot is too fraught with holes. Those would all be false statements. What the movie, and I imagine the books, lack is broad appeal. It lacks that depth and magic that manages to make a kids movie a movie that the whole family really enjoys. And Chris Columbus should know this better than anyone. He's the man that directed Home Alone and yes, he's the man that directed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. 

Percy Jackson did a lot of things very adequately. I just wish it would've done a few of them terribly. At the very least, I could have walked out of the theater feeling something. As it is, this movie will likely fade out of my memory completely.