Wednesday Movie Review - Percy Jackson

This past weekend, Tony and I went to see a couple of movies which I will review here over the next two days. The first movie I want to tell you about is Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.

As I have mentioned in the past, if a movie is based on a book, then I am a firm believer in reading the book before you see the movie. Tony got me the Percy Jackson set of books for Valentine’s Day so that I could read the first book before we saw it. (I’m currently on book number three – they are really good.) I finished the book a couple of weeks ago and Saturday we decided to see the movie. I’ve also mentioned in the past that I absolutely hate it when a movie steers far away from the book and that is exactly what happened in the case of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I was extremely disappointed in this movie. I mean really, how hard is it to write a script based on a novel; especially when the novel is less than 400 pages? I just don’t get it. I really don’t. If I wrote a book and sold the rights to filmmakers, I would make absolutely sure that the film script was true to my novel and it certainly wasn’t in this case. Maybe I’m just a nit-picker, but I didn’t care for this film at all. On the other hand, Tony has not (and probably will not) read the book and he really liked it or in his words, “it was pretty good.” But, keep in mind, he says “pretty good” about everything. Maybe he will leave a comment letting you know his opinion.

Here are some of the differences I noticed in the movie:

• In the book, Annabeth has a signature New York Yankees baseball cap that makes her invisible when she is wearing it. This cap happens to be mentioned in the book no less than 50 times. There was no Yankees cap in the movie.
• In the book, when Percy arrives at camp, he does not know who his father is. Later on, during a game of capture the flag, Poseidon claims Percy as his son. This did not happen in the book. Once Percy arrived at camp, he was told Poseidon was his dad. I was really looking forward to the claiming scene and it didn’t happen.
• In the book, Camp Half Blood was run by Dionysus – he as not in the movie.

• In the book, the camp’s “cover” was that it was a strawberry farm. There was not one strawberry in the film.
• In the book, Clarisse, daughter of Ares, is one of the campers and she and Percy don’t get along too well. While Clarisse isn’t a huge part of book one, she is mentioned several times. There is no Clarisse in the movie.
• Speaking of Ares, in the book, while on their quest, Percy, Annabeth and Grover run into Ares who tricks them. Area was not in the movie.
• Speaking of the quest, in the book, the quest was assigned to Percy, Annabeth and Grover and in the movie they snuck out of camp to go on the quest.
• In the movie, the threesome receives a map from Luke before going on their quest. The map showed them where to get three pearls of Persephone to use in order to leave the Underworld. In the book, there was no map, they did not have to find the pearls of Persephone, and the pearls were given to Percy by a naiad under water.
• In the movie, the threesome stops in Nashville to collect one of the pearls. In the book, there was no stop in Nashville.
• In the book, the three did stop in Saint Louis, and Percy got stuck in the top of the arch with a monster and then a hole was blown in the side of the arch and Percy jumped out into the river – this didn’t happen in the book.
• When Percy went to Olympus, he went alone. In the movie, his mom rode the elevator with him and Annabeth went with him also.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. There were an innumerable amount of differences between the book and the film and I was extremely disappointed. If you’ve read the book, chances are you won’t like it much either; but, if you haven’t read the book, maybe you will.

Tony's take: pretty good