The Black Campbell

I’m a big fan of Greek mythology.  Always have been.  Despite Roger Ebert’s claims to the contrary, the Greek myths are populated with intriguing characters and situations that were replicated around the Mediterranean, and heavily influenced the Celtic mythology.  Norse myth, for me, is essentially a series of stories about powerful gods/ heroes getting drunk and brawling.  It’s like one long Friday night in London.

A friend of mine had heard I was working on a retelling of the Perseus myth, and loaned me the first volume in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series.  The teen fic turn of phrase was annoying to me, but the story was a speedy and imaginative modern version of Perseus.  When I heard a movie was being made, I was not particularly interested.  Still, I went and had a look last week.

The Lightning Thief was pulling 50% on Rotten Tomatoes when I checked today, and I found most of the criticism was unfair and biased.  Largely, these movie “buffs” saw the movie as a Harry Potter knockoff with an American accent.  Fair enough, it’s teen fiction about a coming-of-age loser turned hero with a supernatural basis, but they miss the skilled retelling of the Perseus story (minus the Cassiopeia and Kraken elements.)

The cast is solid, but it’s the bit players that really make the movie shine.  Pierce Brosnan does a good, if not great, job as Chiron, the centaur that trains heroes.  He does look good as centaur, however.  Uma Thurman — not one of my favorite actresses — chews the scenery as Medusa, and does it the same way Brian Blessed can:  it’s gloriously over the top, but somehow still spot on.  Steve Coogan is particularly good as Hades, playing the god of the underworld with a panache and careless humor that makes him the most interesting of the gods we meet.  Sean Bean, who I think has a contract with Hollywood requiring him to be in every movie made since 2000, is Zeus and brings his usual near-histrionic style to the Lord of the Gods.  Wasted here is Melina Kanakaredes as Athena — mother of one of the main characters.  She has two lines.

The main characters are played well by Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson), Alexandra Daddario (Annabeth), and Brandon T Jackson (Grover the Satyr.)  Jackson does the usual hipster sidekick/comic relief that all black actors seem to have to endure.  He’s funny, but I always find this character archetype forced.  Daddario has a spectacular look that works for her “daughter of Athena” role.  (Athena…the chaste goddess.  Um…)  Lerman is annoying, at first, as the loser kid with ADHD and dyslexia (because his brain is hardwired for ancient Greek, being a demigod), but as the story progresses and he starts to be more comfortable in the role, there is a bit of a swagger over the teen anger that works well.

There is an attempt to be relatively faithful to the spirit and tropes of the Olympian myths (minus the Athena having a child thing…)  It’s not a Harry Potter knockoff, but more of a reimagining of Greek myth.  Perseus is a loser — the grandson of king Acricius that sets his daughter and her son off in an small boat to die [Perseus is the son of Zeus in the original story.]  He is pushed into hunting Medusa in a moment of pique and with the aid of Athena and Hermes, goes on to become s great hero — slaying Medusa and the Kraken, before doing in his grandfather and becoming king.  The movie swaps Zeus out for Poseidon, and Percy’s aid comes from Annabeth and Grover the Satyr.  (The gods are forbidden from contacting their mortal children by Zeus, but that’s part of the plot and I’ll not do spoilers here.)

The special effects are good — especially the gait of the satyr and centaur characters.  They look right.  The pacing is good, fast, and the movie has a light humor that is perfect for the teenage audience it’s aimed at.  I do wish the movie had given us the reason for the entrance to Olympus being in the World Trade Center — they do in the book:  as civilization progresses, and the center of civilization changes, the link to Olympus changes — from Greece, to Paris, to London, to New York.

Without the English accents and boarding school chic of the Potter series, I can see where people would view this as a low-rent version of that series…they’re wrong.

Overall, I’d give it 3 out of 4 stars.  It’s definitely worth a matinee showing, and I didn’t feel gipped going to a full-price evening show.