Harry Potter changed the world of books for the good. He got more children reading and revolutionized the children/teen/young adult markets. However, despite the success of his films, his effect on the movie world is not so good.
With over a half-dozen box office hits, the boy wizard has given birth to baby dragons, freaks, vampires and a slew of other supernatural box-office failures aimed at capturing Harry’s magical $orcerer’s Stone.
Now, the gods are angry and want their fair share of the tribute. After all, most of our stories come from the ancient Greek mythology, so why shouldn’t they get shot at some teenage magic?
Enter “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.”
Based on the successful series of novels by Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is your usual angst-filled teen who has a talent for holding his breath under water. He has a best-bud named Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), a hard working mom (Catherine Keener) and a crude, smelly step-father (Joe Pantoliano). He never met his father.
Then one day, his teacher turns into a fury, his school principle (Pierce Brosnan) gives him a pen that turns into a sword and he finds out that he is the son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd). Oh, and everyone in Olympia thinks he stole Zeus’ lightning.
He is taken to a secret summer camp where all the young demigods live and train in ancient Greek martial arts. There, Percy finds that Grover’s crutches are a disguise to hide the fact he has goat legs (satyr) and that his wheelchair-bound principle is really a centaur named Chiron.
Turns out that children from the “Big Three”—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades—are a rarity and they have been paying close attention to Percy. And now that everyone thinks he has stolen the lightning, Percy, Grover and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), a daughter of Athena, must go on a modern day odyssey to find the real thief, rescue his mother and save the world from a war of the gods.
