Percy Jackson

I had plans cancelled this weekend, and I was left on a Sunday evening in my dorm without much to do. The rest of my suite (as well as the majority of campus) was out on account of "fall break" (a three day weekend during which the smarter students will understand that this actually does not exempt them from any work due the following week; I myself have a test in two days). So, I ended up sitting in my room somewhat bored that I hadn't done much this weekend, but with no desire to go out.

The result was that I curled up in my bed, wore fuzzy socks, and rented an iTunes movie: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I have an avid interest in both film and mythology, so I figured this would be a fun and fairly mindless movie. I trusted my roommate enough to refrain from judging me after she got back, once she found out my film choice. I have never read the books, and I probably will never read the books unless I can very easily obtain a copy without spending money (someone loans their own copy to me, one miraculously appears in my dorm room).

Percy Jackson is a middle school student with what he thinks is ADD and dyslexia. But, we soon find out that the ADD is actually a godly urge to fight demons and his dyslexia is from the fact that English letters all look Greek to him (literally-- also, all Greek letters look English to him). There is one scene of him staring at the blackboard and all the letters turn into water. He can also hold his breath underwater for seven minutes. He has an abusive stepfather whose last name is "Ugliano," so we can tell he's probably pretty mean. Throughout the rest of the movie, he befriends a satyr, decides that he likes the daughter of Athena, and meets the son of Hermes. Percy, Athena Jr, and Satyr hang out together the whole movie (I didn't remember anybody's name other than Percy's and god/demigod names that already existed). 

Percy is not the smartest protagonist in history. It took him a good thirty minutes into the movie to realize that he was Poseidon's son (even after knowing that he was the son of a god for twenty mins), despite his being able to sit underwater for unusual periods of time and seeing Greek letters turn into water. Twenty minutes after this discovery, he is lying on the beach, mortally wounded (according to Athena Jr, who lightly cut him on the arm and face), and he doesn't think it would be a good idea to actually touch the water near him until he hears another voice telling him that that would be a good idea. However, he catches on pretty quickly after this, and develops cool water powers during the rest of the movie. I do wish he knew more about mythology, though, because everything has to be explained to him during the movie, like who Persephone is, what a centaur is, and why you shouldn't cut a hydra's head off. 

Athena Jr bothered me a bit more, though, because for someone who was supposed to be the descended from the goddess of wisdom, she wasn't very wise. While Percy fights the hydra, she is smart enough to point out that its heads will grow back doubly if one is cut off, but she forgets that the trio happens to be carrying Medusa's head with them (that they obtained earlier in the movie), so they could turn the hydra to stone at any point. While obtaining magic teleporting pearls that will take the protagonistic trio to the underworld on a rescue mission, she doesn't realize that they will need four magic teleporting pearls in order to leave, not just three, because of the added person.  The problem with these mistakes is that this is something that the viewer could quite easily point out on their own, without knowing anything about mythology. 

Anyway, the movie itself was fine. Not brilliant, but a good watch for a cozy and introverted Saturday night. I just hope Percy Jackson learns a bit more about mythology before his next adventure. It really is dangerous to cut off a hydra's head. Hadn't he seen Hercules?