Movie Review - Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)

Starring Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, Uma Thurman, and Catherine Keener

Directed by Chris Columbus

Low-rent Harry Potter is what this one is.  Director Chris Columbus (who also directed the first two Potter pics) manages to actually craft a decent looking film filled with moderately nifty special effects sequences, but the story itself here is pretty dismal.

High schooler Percy Jackson (a one-note Logan Lerman) discovers on a school field trip one day that he is the son of the Greek god Poseidon.  It turns out that Zeus believes that Percy (for some ridiculous reason or another) stole his lightning bolt and unless he returns it in two weeks, humans will have hell to pay.  Why?  I don't know.  Maybe because Percy's a half human-half god or maybe because Zeus is just one angry dude with a superiority complex.  It doesn't really matter because the story itself is ridiculous and it makes this film fail miserably.

The books that this flick is based on are apparently quite popular, but the fantasy realm presented here can't compare to the whimsy of Hogwarts, for example (and I'm not even a huge fan of the Potter films).  Like I said, Columbus actually does a fairly admirable job in the direction, but this was painful to sit through.

The RyMickey Rating:  D