The Lightning Thief Movie - Disappointing If You've Read The Book
By Mason Kelly, Special to SantaCruzWire.com
SANTA CRUZ (July 2010) - When I first heard that a movie version of Rick Riordan's bestselling book "The Lightning Thief" was coming out, I was jumping for joy. I had read the book close to 50 times (no exaggeration!) and knew the story like the back of my hand. But when I saw the movie, I realized the director had distorted and erased many of the best characters and events in the book.
For instance, the movie has no tree of Thalia, no Mr. D, no Cerberus (a three-headed dog-beast), and no fight with the war god Ares. In addition, the actors looked much older than their 12-year-old characters and didn’t seem enthused about what they were doing. (They wore vacant, bored expressions most of the time.) “The Lightning Thief” is a decent movie if you haven’t read the book. But if you have, the movie is a pretty big letdown.
The movie is funny, I have to give it that. Grover, Percy's satyr sidekick, is definitely the funniest character, always making jokes about the underworld, his goat butt, and just about anything else. “Is it just me, or is it raining cows?” Grover says as the Minotaur (a giant half-bull, half-man beast) throws a cow at them.
The Underworld scenes also have a lot of very funny moments. Persephone and Hades are hilarious as an argumentative, bickering couple. Hades’ entrance scene (bursting out of the fire of Camp Half-Blood as a giant fiery beast) was very cheesy. It looked like a machine with bad animatronics. But Steve Coogan, the actor who plays Hades’ human form, did a great job in making his character greedy and selfish, yet humorous.
I have to praise the movie for how realistic some of the monsters and settings looked. The Hydra was spectacular. When its many heads were cut off, the regeneration was impressive, and the fire made me jump. The Minotaur was also very realistic, taller and scarier than I had pictured it. Medusa was pathetic - the only monster I really didn’t like. They gave her a supermodel’s face and giant sunglasses. I would have given her a gorgon’s face (ugly, shriveled and green) too, not just a gorgon’s snaky hairdo. They were trying to make her modern, I think, but it didn’t turn out too well.
When I first saw the Underworld I was thrown. In the book, the River Styx was a black, murky, river. In the movie version of Hades, Percy Jackson and his friends float through the air above pits of fire. I thought the Underworld would be pitch black and full of roaming spirits. Instead there was fire. Lots and lots of fire. Heck, in Hades’ castle there was a fountain with fire in it, instead of water. I would not recommend having one of those near small children.
I was disappointed that the movie completely skipped the heroes’ Underworld adventure. Charon took them straight to the Castle of Hades, with no interesting detours. There was no Cerberus, and Mrs. Dodds (Percy’s monster algebra teacher, disguised as a human) apparently had no connection to Hades.
Another disappointment was the missing battle with Ares, one of the high points of the book. In the movie, you don’t even see Ares until the winter solstice, near the end. I was really looking forward to seeing Ares getting his butt whipped.
Overall the movie had good special effects and some funny moments, but compared to the book it really was a disappointment. If you’re a parent who thinks your kid will love this movie because he read the book, you may be wrong. Chances are that he will like it, not love it. My eight-year-old brother Dane loved the movie, but he had never read the book. Everyone else I know who read the book and watched the movie (which is a lot of people) didn’t think the movie was good at all. I give this movie two out of five stars for people who have read the book and three-and-a-half stars out of five for people who haven’t read the book yet.
Rick Riordan, I’m sorry, but you should be praying that there isn’t a sequel to this movie!
Mason Kelly is 12 years old, and is enrolled at Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School in Santa Cruz. He loves playing sports, including beach volleyball, snowboarding, skiing, and basketball. The only thing he loves more than sports is reading, and writing about books.
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