Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief (book & movie)

I should’ve written this review last weekend, but I’ve been extraordinarily lazy. I finished the book on Saturday night and Rusty took me to see the movie on Sunday. I’ll do my best not to spoil anything.

Percy is a troubled preteen who has floated from school to school, always plagued by bad decisions and unlucky incidents. He’s always attributed the problems to his dyslexia and ADHD. That is, he did…until one day when his teacher turned into a flying hell-beast. Literally.

Percy finds out that his father isn’t quite what he expected. Percy is a demigod and is but to the challenge of finding Zeus’ lightning bolt that has been stolen. Is Percy up to the challenge of saving the world? After all, he is only 12.

I really thought this was a cute book and a good beginning to the series. It’s been a while since I studied Greek mythology, but from what I could tell, Riordan did a good job of modernizing the ancient myths while still keeping them somewhat true to form. I feel like he made them approachable for children. Percy was a likable character that I think kids will identify with. Sure, parts of it were predictable, but it was a children’s book after all.

As for the movie, I found it enjoyable as long as I separated it from the book. The special effects were fun, and the casting was decent (though not how I pictured some of the characters). They left out a major part of the plot and revamped it in a way that I thought wasn’t necessarily better. One thing I didn’t care for were the adult references in the movie. I’m not a huge censorship fan, but I sort of feel that if you are marketing a movie specifically for kids, there really isn’t any reason to add in adult humor (especially since it wasn’t in the book). Okay, off my soapbox.

One thing that I’ve heard people were upset about is that in the movie, Percy is 16ish. In the book, he is only 12. I didn’t have that big of an issue with it, but I haven’t read the later books in the series yet. Perhaps it will be problematic for the future of the series.

And on a final note: the BEST thing about the movie? The guy who plays Poseidon, Kevin McKidd, is totally my husband’s (older and more famous) doppelganger. I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy (he is Dr. McArmy), but I have a total crush on him. Here is a picture of them for comparison. What do you think? Do you see the resemblance?