It's not all greek to me

First of all, I want to be clear that I haven’t read any of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians books. In fact, prior to seeing the trailer of the movie adaptation, I hadn’t heard of Rick Riordan’s collection. When I think about it now, I really must be getting old. The last popular book series I was really into was Harry Potter—a fact that is related to why, without really knowing anything about it, I gave Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief a shot.

The Lightning Thief is directed by Chris Columbus, who gave us Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). In an interview with Rollcreditsonline.com, Columbus explains what made him want to do The Lightning Thief: “What triggered it for me was the opportunity to do a movie that we haven’t really seen before for this generation. When I was a kid, there were movies that dealt with Greek mythology, but they were movies like the original Clash of the Titans, which, in terms of visual effects was really primitive. So I thought this was an opportunity to deal with Greek mythology, which children and adults all over the world are fascinated by, and it was not a new genre, but a new avenue, dealing with mythological creatures in a contemporary setting.”

I have to admit, this part of The Lightning Thief was rather fascinating. Imagine a planet where the Olympians still exist in secret, coupling with humans once in a while, and having demigod children that live among us. If you ask me, the potential of this concept is so right up in the same alley as the Marvel superheroes, Twilight and Harry Potter even.

Still, how do you manage to stay faithful to the spirit of ancient Greek mythology, especially in such a setting as the New World? Well, snippets of ancient Greek writing and Greek statues in museums just won’t do, unfortunately.

In The Lightning Thief, teenage Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) discovers that he is a demigod—that, in fact, he is the son of the god of the sea, Poseidon—after a substitute English teacher, who turns out to be a Fury, attacks him during a school trip at a museum. He is rescued by his Latin teacher Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan) and his best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), who seem to know what the attack was all about.

Percy is immediately brought to Camp Half-blood, a training camp for demigod children, by Grover, who happens to be a satyr and his assigned protector, and his mother Sally (Catherine Keener), who had been hiding this secret from him for his own safety. Brunner, it turns out, is the really Chiron, the centaur who runs the camp.

If that’s not yet too much for a teenager to take in, there’s more: Percy soon finds out that he is suspected to have stolen Zeus’ lightning bolt and Hades has been sending his minions to get it from him. Zeus has issued Poseidon an ultimatum: if the lightning bolt isn’t returned to him in 14 days, there will be war like nobody alive has ever seen before.

What really motivates Percy, though, is finding out that his mother had been kidnapped by a minotaur and is now a prisoner of Hades, the god of hell. Determined to save his mother by convincing Hades that he didn’t have the lightning bolt, Percy and his two friends, Grover and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) make the trip to hell… and back.

While The Lightning Thief is an enjoyable ride, I truly believe they could have handled the Greek mythology better. As it is, it seemed a bit watered down — too Americanized, if you will — and, therefore, has lost some of the ancient magic I associate with it. Hogwarts seems more ancient, and that, my friends, is a real tragedy.

According to some reviews I’ve read, the books are actually funny. This movie isn’t, excepting Grover, who provides the traditional sidekick comic relief. I could have done with a little more fun.

What gets the film going, though, is its star-studded, though mostly underutilized, cast. There’s Brosnan a centaur that doesn’t see a lot of action. There’s Uma Thurman as Medusa, who dies all too soon (her head stays with us until the end, as a weapon, though). There’s Sean Bean as Zeus, still looking very much like Boromir from Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. And there’s young Logan Lerman himself, who Columbus believes is the next big star.

All that being said, I’m still happy this film has brought Greek mythology back into mainstream interest. I’m going to be getting those Percy Jackson & the Olympians books. And I’m also going to dig up my old copy of Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.

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