[Logan Lerman, Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean]
With 3 movie openings on the same weekend, there was enough dilution in the market to sink "Avatar" to 4th place this week. Of course, the Valentine holiday supplied enough guilt for boyfriends to take their ladies to a date movie.
SYNOPSIS: Percy Jackson, so comfortable in water, discovers he is the offspring of the greek god Poseidon after he is accused of stealing Zeus's lightning bolt. In order to save his mother, clear his name and stop a gods war, he must go on a demi-god quest.
Chris Columbus gained enormous success with the first two installments of the "Harry Potter" series. He breathed life into J.K Rowling's characters with Daniel Ratcliff, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. He was obviously the first choice to do the same with another teen/pre-teen book series. Here's the problem... I read all of the Harry Potter books and fell in with all of the other fanatics clamoring for each book and subsequent film. I never heard of Percy Jackson before the film, and really only went to the movie on the strength of Chris Columbus' directorial skills and the vague marketing promise that this would be another Potter-esque experience.
Potter-esque it is not! The idea of gods and demi-gods in Olympus and on earth is a cool one. I am a huge fan of greek and roman mythology, so seeing a Hydra or winged Converse sneakers or Uma Thurman as Medusa cranks up the "greek" factor for me. But the teenage main characters going against the beasts of myths just didn't do it for me. Every teenage angst movie ends with the rebellious kids getting the job done, doing it their way. Therefore, I wasn't all that invested.
Logan Lerman plays Percy, along with Brandon T. Jackson as his junior protector satyr pal Grover and Alexandria Daddario as the Athena-born Annabeth. Lerman's Percy brings the charm and crooked smile good looks. Jackson's Grover supplies the typical side kick comic relief. Daddario's Annabeth offers up the female foil for Percy to distract and inspire him. Sean Bean and Kevin McKidd play the gods Zeus and Poseidon with arrogance and detachment, just like good gods should.
"Percy Jackson" resides in the middle of the pile, below any of the "Harry Potter" films, above "The Seeker", and mixed in with "The Golden Compass" and the "The Chronicles of Narnia" films. Maybe all of our young adult fantasy films need british accents to get the jog done.
Worth: Matinee or Netflix
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