REVIEW: The Lightning Thief

   As a huge fan of the Percy Jackson series, it's only natural that I'd feel the desire to re-read the books every now-and-then. Plus, I have to keep myself fresh since Riordan is still releasing books! I finally just finished The Blood of Olympus and am SO pumped for Trials of Apollo to come out this summer!!
   This time, after reading the books, I decided to re-watch the movie. I remember seeing The Lightning Thief in theaters when it came out back in 2010. I didn't like it. After re-watching it, the book fresh in my mind... I still didn't like it. Yes, I'm biased having read the whole series, but even if I hadn't read it, I don't think I would have cared much for it... Simply put, The Lightning Thief movie just doesn't have any real depth..!

   Let's start at the beginning: you see Zeus and Poseidon arguing over this missing bolt, and that was the first wrong thing! The whole point of a book or film is to learn along with the characters! If you just hand everything to your audience, there's nothing left for us to figure out. There was no mystery! From the very beginning you already know that Percy is Poseidon's son... The WHOLE POINT of the first, like, 5 chapters is the mystery about WHO Percy's godly parent is! Also, the audience is supposed to follow alongside Percy as he grows and learns about his special powers, in the movie he pretty much has got everything figured out already. How boring.
   And speaking of characters... Am I the only one that is still annoyed that everyone is high school age when they're supposed to be 12??? The whole point of them being in middle school is because that's the world renowned age group of awkwardness! You're no longer a kid, your suddenly starting to notice the opposite sex, you feel like you don't fit in anywhere- which is pretty much the whole story of Percy Jackson, just with all the Greek Mythology mixed in...
   On top of that, we have the lack of character development. Percy never had to wonder and worry about being claimed (not that "being claimed" was ever mentioned in the movie anyways), Chiron sent him directly to the Poseidon cabin. Whatever happened to him being the new kid?? ((And about the cabins- why did we never see any of the others?? Luke has a random tent to himself- where's the rest of Hermes Cabin???)) Grover, in the movie, starts out as this overly confident, mature, cool-kid satyr who's the center of the party; however, the real Grover is nothing like that. Grover is supposed to start out as a pitiful, crybaby, kid who's unsure of himself and eventually grows into a self-assured grown satyr with a searcher's license and an adorable romance. Annabeth, on the other hand, is pretty much herself except with a lot more of the bitchy attitude from the get-go. In the book, Annabeth is a love-sick girl who acts confident but is really trying to find her way in the real world. She's high-strung, adorable, highly intelligent, and not very much like her film counterpart. And, of course, I have to say it: WHY WASN'T SHE BLONDE??? And the worse part? If you decide to make Annabeth brunette in the first film, don't change it for the second one! You've already made the mistake, now you're just making it worse...!

   I also didn't like how different they made the world, either. Don't get me wrong, the art and graphics were amazing, especially Olympus and The Underworld, but what about the spectacular world of the Greek gods in Western civilization? In Rick Riordan's world, what makes this story so appealing is the idea that the Greek gods and monsters and myths could be lurking right around the corner. How the simplest things like a fast food chain, a mattress store, or the Empire State Building could be connected to a whole other world. But in the movie, everything relatively "normal" was just glossed over. Finding their way into Hades had to be complicated and secretive- why couldn't they just find themselves to the rundown LA music studio??
   And let's not forget the whole plot change..! Ares had no part in the movie, and I actually loved the badass Ares we meet in the book! Especially how Percy wins their little scuffle at the end- how do you think he becomes famous in the camp?? Well, besides the whole returning the lightning bolt, thing... Hermes is also missing. The kindly cousin who gives Percy a push every now-and-then, and truly feels for his lost son, Luke. And Luke... He genuinely has a strong dark purpose for wanting to overthrow Olympus, but in the film he sounds just like any run-of-the-mill bad guy. So you have to ask, where is Kronos??? The main baddee calling the shots from Tartarus, the one pulling the strings through everyone's nightmares?? Way to kill the story...
  And the last thing I have to mention: the learning aspect of it all. One of the major pulls of every Riordan series is getting to learn. Throughout the book Percy meets various monsters and gods, he ventures to all sorts of places throughout the world, meeting heroes and villains of myth. But that's not the case in the film. We don't have Annabeth giving us a history lesson every time we meet a new monster, or Grover and Chiron teaching us about the gods and their part in the world we live in today.
   I don't want to say that the movie was bad, but it definitely wasn't good. And it certainly didn't live up to the book. All they did was make an action movie, geared towards teens and young-adults, with the cool addition of Greek Mythology... And Riodan's books are so much more than that. You can't have a decent film without heart, and honestly, that's exactly what it was lacking.