Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Young Percy Jackson finds out he is no ordinary high school teenager and soon becomes entangled in a fight between the gods who are accusing him of stealing Thor's Lightning Bolt.
Film making 15/25
Video 22/25
Audio 23/25
Bonus Features 18/25
Total 78/100
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is the film based on the first of five books from author Rick Riordan. Percy Jackson takes the mythos of ancient Greece and brings it smack into the 21st century with Percy Jackson the son of a mortal and Poseidon.
Percy played by Logan Lerman is a high school youngster who can hold his breath for much longer than the usual teen and does not know his true origins. Demigods are half mortal and half god, the offspring of a god who takes a mortal spouse for a time and very seldom does one of the big three have children.
Percy Jackson does not know it but he has a guardian and someone else who is watching after him because of his unique father, Poseidon. Zeus thinks Poseidon's son has stolen his lightning bolt but Poseidon does not believe it, Zeus gives him a few days to come up with it or war will breakout.
Percy is in high school with pal Grover who is actually a Satyr in disguise as Percy's protector while one of their teachers is a wheelchair ridden centaur named Chiron. When a Fury disguised as a teacher attacks Percy thinking he has the lightning bolt and will gain power by finding it he quickly finds out who he really is.
Grover and Chiron protect him from the attack and Chiron tells Grover to take him to his mother and get them to safety. Grover and Percy go to his apartment and after a quick confrontation with his jerk step father Percy, Grover and Percy's mom Sally leave for Camp Half Blood.
The camp is a place that demigods can train and no one can enter except half bloods like Percy, Chiron and Grover who are also half bloods. Sally cannot enter the camp and a minotaur sent by Hades attacks them, all Percy saw was her engulfed in flames just before he killed the minotaur.
The camp is excited to have one of the big three demigods which are the offspring of either Zeus, Poseidon or Hades and after introductions Chiron puts Percy to the test. Chiron, a teacher at the camp, stages a capture the flag game where Percy proves he can handle himself and use some of his father's powers.
After some training and an introduction to the other member of our little group, Annabeth Chase played by Alexandra Daddario, they start their quest. Hades visits the camp from the flames of the campfire at the nights celebration after Percy wins the game and tells Percy he can get his mother in exchange for the lightning bolt.
Percy has no idea who has the lightning bolt so Annabeth, Grover and Percy set off to find his mother by getting into hell and confronting Hades. After finding three pearls that will return them safely to our world they enter hell only to free Percy's mother and realize they only have three pearls and four people who want to return.
Grover makes the sacrifice and stays behind with Persephone after Hades was zapped with the lightning bolt as she staged a bit of a revolt. Persephone agrees that the lightning bolt needs to get back to Zeus after the son of Hermes hid it in the shield he gave to Percy back at Camp Half Blood.
Luke Castellan, the son of Hermes wants to start a new era of the demigods ruling over the world by having the gods fight each other due to the theft of Zeus's lightning bolt. He planted the lightning bolt in the shield he gave Percy so that Hades would find it when they went there to rescue Percy's mother.
Luke and Percy fight over the lightning bolt when Percy tries to return it to Mount Olympus and after Percy wins and defeats Luke he returns the lightning bolt to Zeus. Zeus gets his lightning bolt back, the war is averted, Percy saves the day, Annabeth gets a quick glimpse of her mother and Poseidon even gets to talk to his son.
The gods are forbidden to have anything to do with their mortal children but this one time is special so Zeus gives his consent to let the two have a quick chat. Poseidon tells Percy he was always been there for him but Percy just could not see him and the story ends with Percy going back to Camp Half Blood.
The story takes quite a few liberties with the traditional fables of the gods of Olympus and the mythology but would have been a little better had they done something else. Percy is a bit too quick to take to his demigod status with powers and everything evolves quite fast for my taste without much questioning.
I just find that it takes things a bit too quickly to go from mild mannered, albeit troubled, high school student to savior of the known world as a demigod. Percy's character jumps right into his role and things move too quickly from that mild mannered student to sword wielding hero and savior.
A little more intervening by friends and fellow demigods while Percy spends at least the first movie/book adjusting would have been more believable and realistic. I just found the transition from the one to the other too fast in the movie and left nothing in the middle for growth of the story and characters later on.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a fairly decent story but I feel just misses that downright believability, I know its fiction but it still could be a bit better. They could have made him a little less powerful from the start and have him rely more on others for at least the first film/book.
Video and audio are very good and about as good as they could be for Blu-ray but just miss that great quality with audio as usual being a bit better than video. Daylight scenes are clear with vivid color but darker scenes appear to be a bit too dark, at least for me they were.
The minotaur fight scene was a bit too dark for my taste and I did have to adjust my television a bit to catch all the scene. This was also noted by other reviewers so it is not just my imagination or home theatre setup which makes me feel a little better, I'd hate to find out I was going blind so quickly.
Audio was absolutely great with no problems and very good positional use of side or rear speakers but nothing really jumped out as being exceptional to rate any higher a score. The LFE for bass was very good and noticeable in several scenes but there was just nothing like a great score that made things pop in the audio area.
Bonus content was mediocre and a bit of a disappointment for such a big production and all the hype just before the release on DVD and Blu-ray. I have received quite a few press releases regarding this and to only have the deleted scenes, a couple making of features and a few other interactive features seemed lacking.
There is actually less than an hour of making of and other features and the interactive stuff is reading about the gods of Olympus and other myths. With as much that is available out there and a producer who worked on two of the Harry Potter films I just expected more for additional content on this release.
They are probably saving the good stuff for later but it is just disappointing to have so little from such seasoned producers and studios. The film is good enough and with the upcoming films in the series and being based on New York Times bestselling books the film is worth a look.
I just don't know if the rest of the series will have the staying power to achieve franchise status like the two big ones, Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a definite rental and if you just have to get it go ahead but I would wait to see if any better editions come out.