Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief has been on my "want to see" list for a while. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to convince the BF to see it with me. Then my silly friends ended up going to see it on a Tuesday! So I had to go see it by myself on my unusually free Wednesday afternoon. I was the only person in the theater. Literally. But it was nice to have the time alone.
I read a byline review somewhere that this is "a story that Harry Potter fans will love." It does follow a very similar formula: boy finds out his unique heritage; boy goes to school to train his new talents; and boy breaks the rules to solve a mystery and save the world. I really appreciated the use of the existing myths to build the story. It makes me want to go reread the myths.
It was a good movie and only little things irked me. I didn't really believe Annabeth's change from super-bitch to friend/sidekick. I just didn't like her, which is unfortunate because I could really dig a character like that. I was bothered when Athena was shown at Zeus' right side in Olympus. As jealous and possessive as Hera was, she wouldn't have given up that position. Really petty things that are probably addressed in the real story.
I liked Chiron, but it was more from recognizing the mythological character I studied in depth when read John Updike's The Centaur in high school. Chiron is the story behind the constellation and my zodiac sign Sagittarius, so I'm a little biased. I'm interested to see if they pull more of Chiron's stories into the rest of the Percy Jackson series.
I haven't read any of the books, but I was very tempted when I passed by the display at Barnes & Noble recently. I really enjoyed the Greek myths when I was in school. I think I would probably really enjoy the series, so they may be going into my To Be Read pile.
3 comments:
Annabeth was completely unbelievable and that's because her character was a combination of two characters in the book: Annabeth the daughter of Athena and Clarisse the daughter of Ares. That was really dumb and probably my least favorite change in the movie. The gods were also very toned down and they changed Hades' character a lot. I liked him better in the book, even though the actor did great. The guy who played Grover, on the other hand, did magnificent!
The book is quite different from the movie. They pulled in stuff from the other movies and left out some major subplots (which makes me think they're not making any sequels because the sequels would make no sense without the stuff they left out). I enjoyed both book and movie equally, but they are very different.
(Oh and I didn't like the res of the series as much as the first book.)
That makes sense if they combined the characters. No wonder she seemed like she had multiple personalities!
I like the actor who played Hades. And Grover was a hoot!
I think I'd like the book better, so we'll try it out. If I ever finish Love in the Time of Cholera!
When I first saw the movie was coming out, I decided to read all the books before it released thinking that it would be done as well as the Harry Potter movies were. While they didn't include all plot elements, they followed the plot fairly closely. That I was expecting this was probably why I didn't like the movie at all. I ended up walking out after about 40 minutes. I can see how the movie would be good by itself to someone who hasn't read the books but as it was, I think the movie was poorly done.
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