Review of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) by Amy C — 15 Mar 2016

As someone for whom the Percy Jackson books helped to define their preteen years this movie is an insult. Now I understand that a film can stray far from its source material while still telling a quality story. Jurassic Park is a great example of this, so I know to judge a film solely on its own merits as an independent story, or as an addition to a greater film franchise, and even by those standards this movie is horrible. I am not saying this lightly as it fails by almost all standards: terrible CGI, bad acting, poor pacing, lazy casting, and worst of all it all feels like it was turned out of a heartless factory production machine. No care. I had a friend of mine (of whom has a similar relation to this book series) tell me in a discussion that if he won the Powerball lottery that the first thing he would do would be to buy the rights to and finance a proper Percy Jackson movie adaptation. It is sad that someone should have to feel like that about the legacy of a piece of their childhood.

Rating: F.