Review of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) by Kevin S — 23 Jul 2012

After jumping from the Harry Potter series, Chris Columbus decides to take on yet another young hero magical fantasy series. This time the Greek gods are being twisted into a hopeful series. The film is what an Americanised Harry Potter would have been like.

We get a sassy black companion, a hip cool soundtrack, and product placements galore. See Percy fight Medusa, not with a reflective shield, but using the back of his iPod. Hermes flying shoes are now Converse.

I kid you not. These made me laugh rather than cringe as luckily the story had kind of sucked me in by then. It has a computer game plot, take this item, collect these items, fight these bosses etc. But it mostly works.

Logan Lerman is an acceptable hero, even though he seems to get to grips with his powers all too quickly. The supporting cast is huge with some great casting decisions. I really enjoyed Coogan as Hades, trying to be a bit more approachable than normal.

Rosario Dawson looked incredible and was having a lot of fun. The action scenes are rather exciting, but it's all too obvious that the source material has been corrupted for a wider audience. It did enough to make me want to read the books and actually look forward to the sequel.