Melbourne Central Hoyts, 02/03/2010
Status: You guessed it, still behind
Did you love Greek and Roman mythology when you were a kid? I know I did. I would copy out tracts of mythology encyclopedias on our new electronic typewriter and make up stories that transposed the heroes and their quests into modern settings. Rick Riordan, the ultra-successful author of the “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” series, had the same idea.
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, the adaptation of the first book in Riordan’s series, appealed to the mythology geek in me (a part which didn’t go away when I grew up and meant that for a little while there I was a certified, practicing archaeologist). My inner geek outwardly groaned in the opening credits, though, as I realised Chris Columbus (Harry Potter 1 and 2, Mrs Doubtfire and don’t get me started on the Home Alone movies) was directing. He is the definition of tepid film-making for me. I probably should have looked that up earlier. (Then I also would have seen that the screenplay was written by the guy who brought us Cheaper by the Dozen and Cheaper by the Dozen 2).
Basically, Percy Jackson (played by LOGAN LERMAN, 3.10 to Yuma) is a high school kid, but also the son of Poseidon (KEVIN McKIDD, Dog Soldiers); Zeus (SEAN BEAN, Lord of the Ringses) loses his lightening bolt and Hades (STEVE COOGAN, Alan Partridge) kidnaps Percy’s mum. Percy goes to demi-god boot camp, gets a gang together and sets off to save his mum and the world. The plot is airmail-paper thin, has no emotional hooks and has holes in it the size of, well, something really big. And I really don’t know why you’d bother getting awesome actors like CATHERINE KEENER (Being John Malkovich), JOEY PANTS (The Matrix) and UMA THURMAN (Kill Bills) in at all if you’re not going to do anything with them.
Even more weirdly, Columbus stages some fairly full on pretendy battle scenes at boot camp. This scores an M rating and precludes all those little kids who adore mythology and copy out tracts from their encyclopedias. Or was I the only one who did that?
