Movie Review - Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

After church a few weeks ago, we took a little family trip to go see the new movie "Percy Jackson & The Olympians:  The Lightning Thief".  Soccer Girl was all psyched up for it, because she has read all  five of the Percy Jackson books, by author Rick Riordan, and had enjoyed them immensely.  Further, she was really excited about the movie because we, totally without warning, saw the trailer when we went to see the most recent Harry Potter movie several months ago.

I confess that I wasn't all that excited about it, because... well... it's a kid's movie, right?  What would there be for me?  As it turns out, there was enough to keep me engaged.  It breaks down like this.  The Olympian God Poseidon, who, along with Hades and Zeus, form the "big three" in the Olympian Pantheon, had taken mortal form, as the Gods are apt to do from time to time, and taken a mortal lover.  The offspring of their union was Percy, who, because of his parentage, was a demigod. 

Once it was revealed to the teen-aged Percy, that he is a demigod, and was being pursued by other powerful gods, he was whisked away to a camp where the offspring of other Olympians were housed, and trained.

I won't go over the movie in detail, but there was a lot of fun in the movie.  The special effects were good, especially the part at the beginning where Poseidon emerges from the sea!  The story was clearly written for the tween market, and as a result the movie was fairly juvenile, which was just fine with me.

I have heard a lot of criticism about this movie, and I suppose it would be fair if watching it from the eyes of an adult... but if you view it from the eyes of the target audience, it was a fine film, one which, no doubt will sell lots of tickets, lots of toys, and more importantly, lots of books.  No... the acting wasn't perfect, but really, who cares about that?... after all, if we cared about good acting, neither Jennifer Aniston nor Cameron Diaz would ever work on-screen again

A word of caution... this movie is great for the kids, but there is some violence and some scary-looking creatures, so be careful if the kids you are taking are really young or easily spooked.  This probably isn't the movie for them.

I enjoyed the movie, and no-doubt, it will join or collection when it comes out in DVD.  If you have the opportunity to see this movie while it is still on the big screen, I recommend that you do so.  You'll have fun, and really, isn't that the whole point?