Review of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) by Chads — 15 Feb 2010

Dyslexia puts a crimp in Percy Jackson's life at high school, but on a field trip to the museum, a minotaur attacks him, so the quest for Zeus' stolen lightning bolt begins before anybody gets the chance to make fun of his learning disability.

Percy(Logan Lerman) is a troubled kid, an alienated kid, who sits at the bottom of a pool for long stretches to escape his shortcomings. His best friend does him no favors socially; he's a cripple on crutches, and girls are nowhere to be seen near these two outcasts.

Raised by a single parent, Percy is poor to boot, living in the apartment of her mother's abusive boyfriend. What's missing from the set-up, however, is some major conflict with the cooler kids to indicate his unpopularity among the student body.

The seeming truncation of these expository scenes fail to establish Percy as an underdog that the moviegoer can truly root for, and care about. When Percy meets Annabeth(Alexandra Daddario) at the camp, the moment would have been more triumphant had some girl rebuffed his overtures in the real world.

The moviegoer never bonds with Percy because the film seems in an awful rush for the dyslexic boy to learn about his unique pedigree. Due to the shoddy character development, the coming-of-age aspect of Percy's adventures gets overshadowed by the CGI effects and non-stop action.

A little more time spent in the high school milieu would have made all the difference in the world, because "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief", at times, is moderately exciting.

(Uma Thurman as Medusa is great.