This was a fun kids' movie. I'm a huge fan of Greek mythology and anything that introduces the next generation to it is okay by me. Granted, this plays fairly fast-and-loose with the myths.Percy Jackson is the son of Poseidon and a mortal woman. He is accused of stealing Zeus' master thunderbolt, even though he doesn't even realize that he's a demigod. He just thinks being able to hold your breath for 7 minutes is normal.
Anyway, immortal creatures start coming out of the woodwork and his protector (Tropic Thunder's Brandon T. Jackson) decides to take him to a camp for god offspring. On the way, his mother gets killed by a minotaur. In order to rescue her from the underworld, he has to find three of Persephone's pearls scattered across the US. One is guarded by the Medusa (Uma Thurman), one is in the Parthenon replica in Nashville, and the last one is in the Lotus Casino in Vegas.
Now, the idea of the Lotus Eaters as denizens of a casino where you lose track of time forever was easily the best adaptation of the movie. That is brilliant and much better than the idea that three high school kids can party in a casino.
Anyway, turns out the portal to the underworld is behind the Hollywood sign (makes perfect sense to me) and after a minor disagreement with Charon, the three kids are ferried to the house of Hades and his bitter wife, played by Steve Coogan and a gleeful Rosario Dawson. This is where Percy realizes that he's been framed and actually did have the master lightning.
He has to fight the real thief across the rooftops of New York City before the clock strikes midnight or Boromir --sorry-- Zeus will start a war among the gods.
Like I said, it's cute. I'm not the target demographic for this at all but I found it to be fairly entertaining in a tween kind of way. It's packed with A-list talent and most kids wouldn't be able to tell that they're phoning it in for the most part.
I loved Rosario Dawson as Persephone! She was hilarious!
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