Movie Review–The Lightning Thief

I love Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief. In fact, I love his entire series. So much so that I have actually purchased all of the books that are out in paperback. I never buy books. But this last week the hunky hubby and I went on a much anticipated date and decided to view the new movie based upon this beloved novel.

Now, suspension of disbelief comes easily for me. I assess the genre and remind myself what is expected of the target audience and off I go, reading or viewing with pure rapture…most of the time. The movie was terrible! I was so sad. How could they have done this to such a marvelous book. If only they had casted 12-year-olds then the dramatic reactions and awkwardness would have felt realistic. If only they hadn’t shown the gods as 20 story behemoths stomping about in the surf and rampaging. If only they had taken their dialogue from the book, it would have been snappy and hilarious instead of painfully awkward. If only they had kept just a bit of the plot out of the book. If only they had refrained from trying to squeeze the god’s into loving and involved father figures it would have been less cheesy. In the books the gods  are distracted and neglectful although most of them do love their children in that philosophical kind of way common to divorced dad’s with a new trophy wife and twenty-six polished sports cars. But the movie made them all gushy and fake. Why why why?

The positives. Percy Jackson was cute, too old but cute. I liked Grover when he wasn’t being too annoying. The Medusa was interesting. I loved the camp. Made me want to go build a tree fort or practice archery. I liked the actor they picked for Poseidon.

The movie experience. The hunky hubby and I had a wonderful time laughing at the movie and slapping our foreheads in horror at the actor’s awkward attempts at greatness. We had a wonderful dinner at the Old Spaghetti factory, bought some of the Percy Jackson books at Barnes and Noble, drooled over their new e-reader the Nook, and ate chocolate and root beer while reading the aforementioned Percy Jackson books in order to cleanse our pallets from all that cheese.