Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (2010)

I’d already been recommended this film by many people but I held off watching it till I’d read the book, for my review of the book go here, by happy coincidence as I was reading the book Sky Premiere was screening this film. Almost like it was fated by the Gods?! I do love adaptations so I literally watched the film mere hours after finishing to read the book. Percy Jackson  and the Lightning Thief was brought to the big screen in 2010 by director Chris Columbus, who you may know for having also directed the first two Harry Potter films. There is also an all-star cast including Uma Thurman, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosman, Steve Coogan, and one of my personal favourites Kevin McKidd, while the less well-known Logan Lerman took the title role.

It all begins with the theft of Zeus’s lightning bolt, Zeus believes that his brother Poseidon is the one behind the theft and so gives till the solstice for it to be returned, if it is not then Zeus will initiate a war of the Gods….Meanwhile in New York, Percy Jackson is about to have one hell of a week. First he vaporizes his maths teacher, subsequently finds out his best mate Grover is a Satyr and his teacher is a centaur, that he himself is the son of a god…but not just any god…in fact he is the son of Poseidon, and so is the prime suspect for the theft of Zeus’s lightning bolt! A fact which forces Percy to accept the role of hero and a dangerous quest across country, down to the underworld, and even into the heavens. Can Percy and his new-found band of heroes find the lightning bolt and return it before the world is plunged into an almighty war?!

I thoroughly enjoyed this film but I’m going to be up front about this I didn’t love it. The three young actors Logan Lerman (Percy), Brandon T Jackson (Grover), and Alexandra Daddario (Annabeth) were all very good and I really enjoyed watching their chemistry. More praise would be for the special effects, they were pretty amazing. However some choices were made in reference to the actual plot line that just seemed geared towards making a big fight scene at the end, I get films need to end with a bang, but in this case they sacrificed other fights and scenes of action through out the story. Overall the changes that were made still made it a wonderful adventure story but it lost a lot of the surprise mythology that I loved so much about the book.

So overall I’m completely in two minds about this film. Taken on face value as an adventure film for the family, filled with links back to the magical world of Greek mythology is was a highly entertaining film. Looking at it as an adaptation though it is going to score a lot lower with me, I’m fine with a plot needing to be edited to shorten or to add more visual scenes but I don’t enjoy it when a lot of the actually essence of the story is lost. To be honest when the changes make the story less interesting….it isn’t a good sign.