Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief opened in U.S. theaters on February 12, 2010, from 20th Century Fox. Chris Columbus directed it, Craig Titley wrote the screenplay, and it adapts Rick Riordan’s 2005 novel. The film runs 118 minutes and is the first entry in the Percy Jackson film series. It took in $226.4 million worldwide against a $95 million production budget.
Trailer, via 20th Century Studios AUNZ.
The Rooftop Deal Between Zeus and Poseidon
The story starts on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Zeus tells his brother Poseidon that a master lightning bolt has been taken, and he blames Poseidon’s demigod son, Percy Jackson. Poseidon answers that the boy does not know who he really is.
Zeus sets a deadline. Unless the bolt is back on Mount Olympus by midnight on the Summer Solstice, the gods go to war with one another.
That standoff is the whole engine of the film. It should drive every scene after it. It mostly does not.
Percy Jackson, Alecto and the Museum Trip
Percy is sixteen and struggles with dyslexia and ADHD. Logan Lerman plays him. On a school trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Fury named Alecto attacks him. She has been posing as his substitute English teacher, Mrs. Dodds, and she wants the bolt.
Grover Underwood, Percy’s best friend and played by Brandon T. Jackson, and his Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner, drive her off. Mr. Brunner hands Percy a cosmic weapon disguised as a pen, then tells Grover to get Percy and his mother, Sally, to Camp Half-Blood. The camp is a hidden sanctuary for demigod children on Long Island. Sally’s abusive husband, Percy’s stepfather Gabe Ugliano, played by Joe Pantoliano, stays behind.
The Minotaur Takes Sally Jackson
The Minotaur hits them on the road, in Sally’s car. It appears to kill Percy’s mother. Percy works out that the pen is a sword, fights the creature, and kills it with its own horn. Then he goes into shock.
He wakes three days later at camp. Percy learns he is Poseidon’s son, Grover is a satyr and his protector, and Mr. Brunner is Chiron, a centaur, played by Pierce Brosnan. His demigod powers start showing up: hydrokinesis and healing among them.
He also meets Annabeth Chase, Athena’s daughter, played by Alexandra Daddario, and the camp’s leader, Luke Castellan, Hermes’s son, played by Jake Abel.
Hades Offers a Trade for the Bolt
An apparition of Percy’s uncle Hades appears to him. Hades says the Minotaur took Sally down to the Underworld, and that she is the price for the bolt. Steve Coogan plays Hades. Percy ignores Chiron’s orders and leaves for the Underworld.
That choice is the film’s best idea. A kid who cannot sit still in a classroom walks into the land of the dead for his mother. Columbus shoots the action cleanly, and the Minotaur fight has real weight. Everything between the fights is where the film loses its footing.
Sean Bean, Rosario Dawson and the Rest of the Cast
The cast is deep. Sean Bean plays Zeus, Rosario Dawson plays Persephone, Melina Kanakaredes plays Athena, Catherine Keener plays Sally Jackson, Kevin McKidd plays Poseidon, and Uma Thurman plays Medusa. Dylan Neal plays Hermes, Erica Cerra plays Hera, Stefanie von Pfetten plays Demeter, Dimitri Lekkos plays Apollo, and Ona Grauer plays Artemis.
Most of them get a scene or two. Bean gets the rooftop argument. Coogan gets an Underworld appearance. Dawson gets Persephone, whom the cast list describes as an admirer of Grover.
The review summary reports praise for the action sequences and for the performances of Lerman and Jackson. That holds up. Lerman plays Percy as a kid who is irritated before he is heroic, which is the right read. Brandon T. Jackson plays Grover as comic relief who is also frightened, which is harder than it looks.
Worlds collide.
Where the Script and the Book Part Ways
The film drew mixed reviews. The criticism landed on two things: the script, and how far the movie drifts from Riordan’s novel. Both charges hold.
In this paper’s view, Titley’s screenplay announces its rules instead of dramatizing them. Characters explain how the world works, then explain it again.
The fidelity problem matters more. The film keeps Riordan’s names and sheds much of what made them land on the page.
Ranked by how much damage each does:
- The bolt theft, which should sit under every scene, never carries the weight the opening promises.
- The Underworld trip, which should be the emotional center, never becomes one.
- The betrayal by Luke Castellan, which should land hard, does not.
- The relationship between Percy and Annabeth, which should carry the series, is thin.
Annabeth is Athena’s daughter and, per the cast list, Percy’s romantic girlfriend. On screen she is a girl who stands near him. Daddario does what she can with it, but the part is underwritten.
A Nintendo DS Game and a Sequel
A video game tied to the film came out for Nintendo DS on February 11, 2010, a day before the movie. DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases followed on June 29, 2010. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel, arrived on August 7, 2013.
Fox picked up the film rights to the book series in 2004. Columbus was hired to direct in 2007. Shooting began in April 2009 in Vancouver, with some shots done in Tennessee and Las Vegas and some exterior work in New York.
What the 4.7 Score Actually Measures
The Lightning Thief is a 118-minute film with a strong cast and a script that does not serve them. The Minotaur sequence works. Lerman and Brandon T. Jackson have the chemistry the film needs. Most of the rest is noise.
The film grossed $226.4 million against a $95 million budget. The source reports those numbers and stops there. It does not say what they justified, and neither will this paper.
The published critical score is 4.7/10, with Metacritic at 47/100. Read plainly, the film is a missed opportunity: good casting, weak script, and a score that says as much.
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