Book-to-Movie Friday: The Lightning Thief
Submitted by Book Nut
So, I took M and C to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief this past Monday.
I went in excited, yet apprehensive: Chris Columbus pretty much hacked the first two Harry Potter books to death and I really wanted the Percy Jackson movie to hold together as a movie, not just be nice scenes from the book. At the same time, I wanted it to be faithful to the book, avoiding the terrible massacre that Ella Enchanted was.
And you know what? I think it succeeded in doing that. M sat next to me and critiqued everything that was different (her biggest complaint: the way the cabins were at Camp Half Blood) than the book. It was fairly significant: they cut and added characters (Persephone was not in the book), combined characters (most notably, they made Annabeth into more of a warrior than she was in the book. Battle strategy, yes. Kicking butt, however, is best left to the children of Ares.), changed scenes and mixed and matched. The adults were there mostly for show, as well: Pierce Brosnon and Chiron mostly just strutted around, and I didn’t get much from Sean Bean or Kevin McKidd as Zeus and Posidon, respectively.
That said, however, they did much right. I liked the look of the movie (Camp Half Blood aside), and the feel. I think the movie got the adventuresome, questing feel of the book down. (Though, I have to admit, it’s been forever since I’ve read it.) Grover was brilliant: Brandon T. Jackson caught the protective, yet hesitant vibe that Grover always gave off. He had the best lines of the movie, stealing the show pretty much every scene he was in. (Even though Logan Lerman is a cutie.) Visually, there was much done right: I loved the vision of the Underworld (a shout out to Steve Coogan as Hades: he rocked.), as well as the Lotus Casino. There were some nice musical cues, as well.
Verdict: it’s not like the book, but it’s not a horrid massacre of it, either. What it is, in the end, is lots of fun.
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