Member review

Percy Jackson and the lightning Thief is a film adaptation of Percy Jackson and the gods of Olympus: the lightning Thief a 2004 book by incredible author Rick Riordan (who's work I am a big fan of). The book is about a 12 year old Percy Jackson, the demigod (halfblood) son of Poseidon who is sent to fix the problems amongst the Greek Gods before a war starts while exploring his demigod abilities and finding a new home at Camp halfblood. As for the film, while being an adaptation of the book, not even this loose definition can be applied to this "adaptation" because of how idiotically the writers failed to follow the story of the book.

However much I hate this film I have to say some positive things about it to give it a somewhat fair review. As a film by it's self it wasn't the worst thing in the universe, despite being a teenager, usually teenage targeted not my type of film but had I not read the books first I may have even given it 4 stars because of the good special affects, good costumes and fairly original story line, and if I would have know of the books but not read them I might have even appreciated the good casting choice for Percy Jackson (although not Annabeth; more on that later) but today is not that day because I am a nerd who has read the entire book series over 3 times and the possibility of me ignoring the books for the sake of being non biased is very much nonexistent.

So fist of all its flaws as a film its self: the 2 main characters Percy and his best friend Grover seem to have no real connection and frankly the interaction between the two, heck the interaction between any characters seem cold to say the least as if the whole script was being said by one of those god awful text to speech apps, and it's not even the actors fault I presume the script was written like that. The second issue is also with the writing the story ended and all was well, but they just had to force a relationship in there didn't they? Wether it was for the sake of having more run time or just to try and appease the dozens of teenage girls who wouldn't watch it if it didn't have a romantic sub plot it was terrible either way and third is

And now on to the grand finale the book comparison: first of all the characters in the book are 12 NOT 16 and this slight difference will play a major part of they ever wanted to continue it they already set themselves up to failure, with the exclusion of Grover, most of his personality is erased, he is a kind soul who lives his life trying to protect Percy as a 26 year old satyr (because satyrs live twice as long and age half as fast) dealing with trying to get his searchers licence and protect any halfblood kids who don't know what they are only to get bullied by a bunch of 12 year old, they missed out the truth about Percy's stepdad Gabe and the whole of Sally's personality, if they wanted to add run time add that in instead of some stupid romantic subplot.

The plot if the film is based around finding pearls but in the book the pearls are a gift and have nothing to do with the quest and in the book Hades is not evil!

In the book Annabeth and Percy are on the same team in capture the flag, the reveal of the villain is a slow burn and they actually see the field of asphodel but I guess they were on too tight of a budget, here's an idea instead of wasting the CGI budget on the hydra which wasn't in the book, you could actually put book events in.

Some minor but important annoyances include Annabeth's and Grover's appearance, Dionysus' and Clarisse's absence, the meeting of Medusa, the scene on Olympus and more.

Overall I think they made this film for the wrong audience and now the film is a constant joke between Percy Jackson fans. They say that the film is only on the tip of the iceberg but in this case the film is a cloud in the distance floating further and further from the iceberg.