Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

So the Harry Potter series (movie) is coming to an end soon, its only natural that every studio and movie producer will be prospecting the libraries and bookstores for the next worthy, and profitable follow up. Many have tried (Chronicles of Narnia; The Spiderwick Chronicles) but few have succeeded. So along comes the next attempt in the form of 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief'. This time the irony is it's by the 1st Harry Potter movie director, Chris Columbus. So it seems like a safe bet to kick start a new franchise.

I honestly never heard of 'Percy' before the release of this movie, and it has nothing to do with age disparity. But upon reading the early movie synopsis, the similarity to Harry Potter is just uncanny. Both deals with a child who was a societal reject in the human world, discovers he is actually a demi-god (half man, half god, Poseidon to be exact) bestowing him special powers and advantage over the rest of his kind, and bears the heavy burden of saving both worlds. It sounds very much like how our schools are run these days. Anyway Zeus, the almighty God of Greek mythology lost his lightning bolt and he is convinced, without any explanation, that Percy is the thief and he gives him 14 days to find it or there will be war throughout the heavens with catastrophic consequences on Earth. Personally, I'm not too impressed by a God who can allow his greatest weapon to be stolen so easily. But guess what the biggest problem is, the world is ending and our hero needs to go through boot camp first before he can search for the lightning bolt!!!

HALLO!!!! I mean seriously, it maybe a fantasy novel but shouldn't common sense still exist? If the situation is that critical and that dire, wouldn't ALL the gods, demi or full, be mobilized to hunt for the thief, I mean its Zeus were talking about here! But apparently, the gods feel its insignificant a deal and they let a young untested teenage boy go save the world with only days to its demise. And to do so, they need to go to Hell (I kid you not) and ask Hades for advice. Oh but of course he had help from some friends in his quest to overcome his ordeals which includes the Medusa, a Hydra and Las Vegas( Resort World didn't complete in time for this production). So here's how the list looks:

Good looking hero-checked;

Hot chick-checked;

Comic sidekick-checked,

Monsters and villains that look mean but given only 5 minutes of lifespan for the sake of adding special effects and movie run time-checked

Ok, all the stereotype cast are here, we have a teenage movie!!! All we need is a theme song.

Seriously I'm not expecting 'Lord of The Rings' type material in 'Percy'. But there wasn't a single moment when I felt our hero and his gang were in any real danger. I just know that whatever they encounter, they are going to effortlessly vanquish the monster within the allocated time frame and move along. There are several ways the film could have used the medieval quest in a modern age setting to create a satirical story. But the producers chose the crowd pleasing approach and wasted the presence of several talented guests stars (Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, Uma Thurman and the hilarious Steve Coogan who played Hades dressed as a rockstar). So the quest for the lightning thief turns into a trip in the MRT with no element of surprise whatsoever, very pedestrian.

'Percy' might work for the young and uninformed audience who won't look beyond the thinner than the paper this script was printed on plotline. I honestly think Harold & Kumar had more adventure and more fun than them! Probably its a sign to say that teenage fantasy movies is not my thing anymore. I just hope the upcoming remake of 'Clash of The Titans' will fare much better.