Lightning-fingered

The story of how Percy Jackson and Olympians: The Lightning Thief got onto the big screen is nearly as marvellous as the Harry Potter books being written on a laptop in a café while JK Rowling was trying to find somewhere warm to spend her time.

The movie started out as a book, which started out as a story that a patient (and very clever) Dad told his son one evening. Rick Riordan’s son, Haley, is dyslexic, and was having trouble at school. To keep his active mind busy, his father would tell him stories about Greek mythology, which he loved. Eventually he told him all the stories he knew, so his son encouraged him to make one up. So over three nights he told his then nine year old son, the story of Percy Jackson – and what was to be the first of five adventures. His son encouraged him to turn it into a book, and the Percy Jackson series of books was born.

In our house Percy Jackson is pretty much a saint. In the books Percy is a misfit who is always getting into trouble in school no matter how hard he tries. He is dyslexic and has ADHD. He has a good heart – but is a magnet for trouble. There is a ready-made audience of children who understand these difficulties, all with the same issues as Percy. In my house, all three of my kids are the same as him, and they just love him; he is a true hero to them.

In the books it is all finally explained to Percy when he makes his way to his true home “Camp Half Blood” (it’s a summer camp for demi gods – half god, half human children who never have contact with their godly parent). The dyslexic is just his brain being hard wired for ancient languages rather than English, and the ADHD is his body constantly being ‘battle ready’!

For the first time in his life Percy finds himself very good at something (fighting with swords), and his courageous heart is put to good use. He is joined on his first quest, (to find both the lightning thief and Zeus’s lightning bolt), as he is in all his quests, by Grover his ‘protector’ – a Satyr (half man, half goat), and the brave and beautiful Annabeth – the daughter of Athena. Percy and his crew are somewhat sidetracked by the loss of his mother as she taken to the Underworld. The Underworld is somehow situated in Hollywood, and Mount Olympus (the home of the Gods) – is at the top of the Empire State Building!

The movie is a humdinger right from the start, and the special effects are amazing. In the movie Percy (Logan Lerman) is 17, while in the book he is 11. While this was disappointing to the 10 year olds at the movie, I can see why they have changed the ages to give it broader appeal.

All the characters are just fabulous. Watch out for Uma Thurman as the snake-haired Medusa, Sean Bean as the perfectly-cast Zeus, and Pierce Brosnan as the compassionate Camp leader Chiron the Centaur (half man, half horse). Grover the Satyr (Brandon T Jackson) gets most of the films laughs, though I just loved Steve Coogan as Hades, god of the Underworld. Rosario Dawson gets to play his disgruntled wife, Persephone. Kevin McKidd (Greys Anatomy) gets to play it straight (and intense) as Percy’s father Poseidon.

This is a film certainly very reliant on CG enhancements, but they are quite seamless when handled by the film's director Chris Columbus. He worked on the Harry Potter films, and is obviously very comfortable with this genre.

The one point I would make is that if you are looking for a close rendition of the book into a film (as has been done so well in the Harry Potter series), you won't find it here. The story is different to the film, as it is of course quite a complicated and complex book. But the essence of the story is there and all the children in my company loved it. The ten year old boys loved all the action, and the 12 year old girls where quite keen on the movie version of Percy, stating he was much better looking than Zac Efron. I, as the assigned grownup, loved it. I was very glad, though, that we had kept our 7 year old at home, as this movie is rated M, and as such should be seen by small people with some definite discretion as there are some rather scary bits.

All in all a fabulous family film, although I would have just loved a little less of the scary bits so that the whole family could have seen it. Nonetheless, I am pretty sure we will be going back to see it again when it comes out on general release on 11 February.

Percy Jackson, half boy, half God, ALL HERO!

Anya Brighouse 8 February 2010