The story concerns the titular Percy Jackson, one of those only-in-movies good-looking charismatic kids who are also inexplicably loners and social outcasts. The son of a single mom (who’s now living with a smelly, alcoholic loser), Percy suffers from dyslexia and seems to be the favorite subject of scorn for his teachers. But then, half an hour into the film, Percy learns his true identity: he’s the son of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. (Oh, yeah, the Greek gods are all real and apparently still running the show from a skyscraper in Manhattan, though the film never delves too deeply into how that all works). Zeus thinks Percy has stolen his lightning bolt, the most powerful weapon in the universe (which, apparently, Zeus just leaves lying around for anyone to swipe). Percy, and a couple of friends he meets along the way, then undertake a quest to prove his innocence and find the real thief.
That’s all well and good, though also quite boring, but what’s really fascinating is what Percy learns about himself along the way. That dyslexia he’s been struggling with? Turns out that’s because he’s ‘hard-wired’ to read ancient Greek. That ADHD that’s made him the whipping boy of his teachers? Turns out that’s just the way his innate battle skills manifest themselves. Those teachers who pick on him? They’re mythological creatures in disguise, put there to keep an eye on him and train him to be a warrior. That smelly alcoholic his mom makes them live with? Turns out his smell keeps the Furies from being able to locate Percy. Basically everything that’s bad in Percy’s life is revealed to have a secret purpose that will make him a great leader.
That message, that any fault in your character will turn out to be a secret strength, is a dangerous sort of wish fulfillment fantasy to be selling the film’s young audience. What kid who has an absentee father hasn’t secretly dreamed that his dad would turn out to be a great guy (a god in this case) who really loves him and just hasn’t been around because he’s not physically able to be (in this case, an ancient law prevents the gods from having contact with their half-human offspring)? Percy Jackson encourages its audience to, rather than work on any issues they might have, indulge in the dangerous belief that the world will adapt to them rather than the other way around. It promotes a philosophy of extreme narcissism and retreat from personal difficulties in favor of the obstinate belief that everything will work out for the best. Kids these days, it would seem to me, are told often enough that they’re special and unique without movies having to get in on the act.
Aside from all that, the film also runs roughshod over Greek mythology, borrowing the most well known myths and throwing them all together into one incoherent plot. Anyone hoping to learn anything about actual Greek myth will be sorely disappointed. And anyone who happens to know anything about Greek mythology going in will be incredibly annoyed. The only thing that Percy (clearly intended to be Perseus despite the fact that Perseus was the son of Zeus and not Poseidon) has in common with his mythological analog is that he kills Medusa. Everything else is just a nonsensical hodgepodge thrown together seemingly only because the average person knows these myths.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a mess of a film made by a hack director who’s never met a story he can’t dumb down and spoon feed. It’s not the most unentertaining movie ever (some of its action sequences are pretty nifty) but it offers nothing that can’t also be found in films that are ten times better. On top of that, it’s message of ‘all your problems are really hidden strengths’ is stupid and borderline dangerous. The film’s a waste, in other words. Here’s hoping it doesn’t do well enough to warrant filming any of the other books in the apparently wildly popular series.
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