Director Chris Columbus' new film "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" suffers from an unfortunate affliction: It's a fantasy story made in the 21st century. As such, there are really only two movie franchises to which it will eternally be compared — "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" — and "Percy Jackson" simply can't keep up. Where "Potter" and "Rings" had characters with depth, stunning sceneries and intriguing plots, "Percy Jackson" has only characters who are more like cartoons and settings like Las Vegas, the Empire State Building and Hollywood that are as inconsequential as they are clichéd.
Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) appears to be a typical teenager; he hates his school and his smelly stepfather. His only abnormalities are an ability to hold his breath under water for seven minutes and a strange case of dyslexia. Percy's life takes a wild and mythical turn when his school field trip brings him to a museum with sculptures of the various Greek gods and goddesses. At the museum, Percy's substitute teacher quickly turns into a Fury — a creature that resembles a bird if its feathers are shaved and it has rabies — and attacks him. Percy's seemingly crippled teacher Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan) and his best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) come to his rescue.
As the plot hurtles forward at breakneck speed, Hades (Steve Coogan), the god of the underworld, kidnaps Percy's mother, and Percy discovers that he is a demigod: half human, half god. With his newly discovered god−like powers, Percy accompanies Grover (who is actually a half−human, half−goat creature called a satyr) and another demigod Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), who is the daughter of Athena, on a quest to rescue his mother from the underworld and stop the imminent war of the gods.
The real crime of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" is the potential that it squanders. The story of an impending war between the ancient Greek gods and a young, vulnerable, not−quite−Herculean hero rising from obscurity to save the day is one that could have been epic. It could have had all the relatability of "Harry Potter" combined with the fantastic imagery of "Lord of the Rings" or "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006). Unfortunately, this film has neither of these things.
The entire leading trio is guilty of bad performances. Lerman fails to inject any emotion into the story's subtext of parental abandonment and teenage rebellion. Jackson seems to have lost the edge that made him brilliant and hysterical in "Tropic Thunder" (2008), failing to establish his character as anything more than comic relief. Daddario's tough exterior crumbles all too easily when in the gaze of the young, attractive Percy.
Columbus, who directed the first two "Harry Potter" films, deserves equal blame for his propensity to insult the viewer with over−explanation, his failure to make one of the coolest concepts in fantasy−movie history visually appealing, and his deus ex machina style of plot resolution. One unbelievable instance in the plot comes when, after successfully navigating the entire country, thwarting inexplicably nonexistent police and constantly risking life and limb, the three heroes are unable to remember that when going on a rescue mission with three people, four escape methods are required in order to include the rescuee. The demigods make the mistake of not being able to count to four.
No matter, this problem resolves itself with a little help from several previously uninvolved characters, and the plot continues to its unbelievably anticlimactic ending. The only bright spots of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" are its cameos, some of which are just as disappointing as the movie itself.
Two stand out in particular:. Uma Thurman gives a wonderful, albeit brief, performance as Medusa, the snake−haired monster of Greek epic, and Coogan gives the funniest and (ironically) most believable performance of the film as the sarcastic and slightly self−loathing Hades.
The performances of these veteran actors could have possibly saved the film were their powerful characters not dispatched as unceremoniously as most of the other obstacles standing in our heroes' way. This ease of journey leaves the audience with nothing to enjoy other than the more awkward moments between actors not quite mature enough to anchor a film. Also not helping was the uninspired guidance of a director who failed to realize that he had more to work with in this film than he did in his first two "Harry Potter" films combined.
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief" may appeal to very young children, but their parents or siblings will be bored to tears and will certainly wonder whether the magic of the first two "Harry Potter" films came to being in spite of Columbus, rather than because of him.
