reviews.txt

A fantasy adventure that fuses Greek mythology to contemporary American places and values. Anyone around 15 (give or take a couple of years) will thrill to the visual spectacle Uma Thurman as Medusa, the gorgon with a coiffure of writhing snakes and stone-inducing hypnotic gaze is one of the highlights of this bewitching fantasy With a top-notch cast and dazzling special effects, this will tide the teens over until the next Harry Potter instalment. Whether audiences will get behind The Lightning Thief is hard to predict. Overall, it's an entertaining introduction to a promising new world -- but will the consuming shadow of Potter be too big to break free of? What's really lacking in The Lightning Thief is a genuine sense of wonder, the same thing that brings viewers back to Hogwarts over and over again. It's more a list of ingredients than a movie-magic potion to enjoy from start to finish. Harry Potter knockoffs don't come more transparent and slapdash than this wannabe-franchise jumpstarter directed by Chris Columbus. Percy Jackson isn't a great movie, but it's a good one, trotting out kernels of Greek mythology like so many Disney Channel references. Fun, brisk and imaginative Crammed with dragons, set-destroying fights and things exploding, [Columbus] squeezes in a few well-meaning pause breaks about friendship and absent fathers before swiftly moving on to the next pyrotechnics display. This action-packed fantasy adventure, based on Rick Riordan's hit Percy Jackson and the Olympians series of books, is great fun, and deserves to find an audience with teens now bereft of any Harry Potter magic.
For what it is and for whom it is intended, it's not a bad movie, just an indifferent one.
Chris Columbus returns to his comfort zone for this mirthless, episodic fantasy saga based on the young-reader book series by Rick Riordan.
The best thing you can say about Chris Columbus's adaptation is that he's incapable of destroying whatever magic and wonder it is in these books that has kept kids coming back for more.
This cast is simply too generic. None of the young thespians stick out.
Percy Jackson may not be "Harry Potter good," but kids will really enjoy it and parents will be happy to have a moviethey can bring them to that's family-friendly.
[P]erfectly inoffensive, occasionally clever... It's in the few genuinely cinematically joyful moments, the ones that do rise above the formula, that you realize how much more this could have been...
Admirably, the movie isn't bogged down in the exposition common to first entries, but at the end, it's a franchise searching for its voice.
The main thing this movie seems to be missing is classically trained British actors.
When the movie slows down to catch its breath, there's very little of the heart and soul -- and wry wit -- that make the Riordan books so beloved.
Imperfect, yes, but also both suitably imaginative and entertaining. Works as action-adventure razzle-dazzle, coming-of-age tale, and beginners' lesson on Greek mythology.
Although the standard allegorical bases for mythical-quest movies are dutifully covered, the obvious similarity of Percy Jackson to the Harry Potter movies inevitably makes it feel somewhat secondhand.
A little bit worse than lifeless; it's clueless, like a Medusa running around with her head cut off.
You don't even have to be familiar with the first book in Rick Riordan's popular fantasy series to enjoy Chris Columbus' energetic adaptation.
This is generic filmmaking at its most banal, a simple-minded simplification of a not overwhelmingly complex book.
Kids may well enjoy the adventures of The Lightning Thief on screen, but I think most readers will prefer the movie in their imaginations.
An attempt to steal some of Harry Potter's thunder that also stands on its own as a well-made large-scale adventure that works well enough to entertain the teens it's hoping to strike.
With great effects (and a few surprises) it's a fun, Saturday-matinee adventure.
Columbus directs with his usual frying pan to the head. Music is forever swelling majestically. Characters are always opening wide their eyes and mouths to gaze in wonder.
While this might not rival the later, better Harry Potter movies or the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it's more fun than you might expect.
Percy Jackson & the Olympians sounds like an Otis Redding cover band. It is, instead, an unofficial cover of the Harry Potter franchise.
The movie feels like a cut-rate Potter knockoff with a dash of Ray Harryhausen.
In Columbus' hands, it once again all breaks down into a series of rushed, breathless special-effects setpieces, in a thrill ride that isn't headed anywhere new.
The Lightning Thief makes the idea of a sequel seem like an inviting proposition.
Columbus aims at nothing more than providing a rambunctious romp. He nimbly avoids the fate that has snared other film adaptations, like Eragon and Inkheart.
gets so many things right that when it goes astray that you kind of wish it hadn't tried in the first place
The Lightning Thief isn't electric, but it generates some spark when it varies the Grecian formula.
Chris Columbus and his crew take a literal approach to spectacle that denies the magnificent use of weirdness and scale that famed stop-action animator Ray Harryhausen brought to such myth-inspired classics as "Jason and the Argonauts" (1963)...
Even with all its computer-generated fireballs, it's lukewarm medium-budget blockbustering.
The disappearance of lightning simply is not interesting, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians sounds more like a '70s funk band than a kid's series.
Uma Thurman demonstrates she can wear a snake-covered head as gracefully as Pierce Brosnan can trot around with a horse's netherlands.
The Greek-gods premise lets the filmmakers indulge in some visually whizzy sequences that keep this rather lightweight action movie entertaining.
Of all the players, Uma Thurman channels the Bride to deliver a Medusa the children won't easily forget when it comes to bedtime.
Enjoyable, nicely paced family adventure with likeable characters, a strong central premise and some decent set-pieces, though the plot's a little hazy in places and the humour doesn't always work.
Action movies of this scale often start off strong and wind down to forgettable finales, but Percy Jackson is the opposite, overcoming a clunky setup to deliver nearly all its thrills in the last half-hour.
The Lightning Thief is all crass ineptitude and lost potential. Columbus' infantilizing of any character depth and use of leftover Harry Potter special effects will amuse only the smallest in your pantheon.
The plot is a pretty blatant rehash of the typical "coming-of-age hero" tropes. Still, while "Percy Jackson" may not end up being the next huge and successful franchise, at the very least, it was an honest and amusing two hours.
Young viewers probably will be entertained but even they are likely to realize that this could have and should have been better, especially by the time they're old enough to drive.
It raises issues it doesn't have the balls to resolve by placing them in a context it doesn't have the brains to exploit.
Whew boy.
My problems with it are the same as with most screen adaptations of young adult novels...they spend so much time struggling to explain the world they're creating that they forget which parts of the story people want to see...they figure that people (kids)
Sadly worthy of its dumping into the cinematic boneyard of wintry mid-February.
The camera work is frequently pedestrian, the acting is bland, and the jokes often fall flat.
Director Chris Columbus has brought together the modern and mythical spheres with sharp pacing and a nifty sense of fun that atone for the film's dippier moments. It's his most enjoyable effort since Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Dutifully Potteresque it begins, and dutifully Potteresque it ends.
Has all the CGI sorcery of a Harry Potter pic, but none of the magic.
Columbus knows his way around this kind of material even if some of the special effects look like they came from Deep Discount.
Percy Jackson, you are no Harry Potter. You are not fit to walk in a hobbit's wake.
Too scary for younger fans of the popular book.
The pleasant surprise is how deftly the story translates the myths from their classical idiom into modern ones and without losing the classical flavor
...great fun for the whole family. And if it introduces you and any young readers in your home to the books, so much the better.
Sorry Mr. Jackson, but Harry Potter you ain't.
A clunky kid-sized epic, able to conjure colossal acts of Greek myth wonderment, but never brave enough to shut its pie hole and let the audience process the screen magic.
Harry Potter meets Clash of the Titans … The backdrop of Greek mythology makes an enjoyable change of pace from the medieval fantasy magic of the Potter stories.
While winning the award for longest movie title, it is a film that only goes through the motions.
Not without bright moments ... but the story is centered around a trio of young actors who simply aren't operating at the same skill level as their older costars.
Built with set pieces that demonstrate a real affection for Greek myth iconography and centered on a strong performance by Logan Lerman (a star in the making), Percy Jackson & The Olympians aims young and hits the target fairly consistently.
It's not awful. It's just not particularly inspired. Something tells me this movie won't be inspiring a sequel anytime soon.
Parental Content Review
Harry, Ron and Hermione: Relax. You could whip Percy Jackson and his pals with your wand hands tied behind your backs.
The film toggles between high camp and deadly earnestness, all the while threatening to drown in an ocean of not-so-special effects.
Likable as Percy may be, it's not lightning he's stolen.
This is a kids' movie: Parents can either get into the silly-suspenseful spirit of it or play Rummikub on their iPhones.
While it certainly isn't terrible, it plays like a low-rent variation of the Harry Potter formula--innocuous but instantly forgettable.