Henry and I saw Percy and the Olympians: The Lightening Thief yesterday. (awkward title, but comes from the book series.) It was mildly entertaining --100% formula, a sort of Harry Potter-very-lite, but with a nice original Greek mythology theme.
This particular formula goes like this: teen feels like a misfit; hooks up with other misfits; together they save the world from _________ (evil wizards, aliens, motor vehicles who transform into aliens, Greek Gods, spy kids, superhero-villains); gain coolness and set the stage for the sequel. All with hipness, wittiness, hottieness and all the other attributes misfit teens possess. Adults are either 1. ineffectual, 2. non-existent, or 3. clueless losers who get in the way.
There's the usual geeky (or in this case, goaty) sidekick, the cute but unavailable girl, the bullies and bad guys, fight scenes and diner scenes. All normalcy returns in the end and the misfit gets the girl.
There were some amusing effects: Pierce Brosnan as a horse's ass (his words, not mine!), Uma Thurman as a wonderfully campy compelling Medusa, and Rosario Dawson as a very hot Persephone (a little geek greek mythology humor there - get it?). Unfortunately, next to the adults, the kids are a little colorless. Lots of no-names with no personalities, frankly. Maybe they'll develop in the next ones.
As a pre-teen, Henry eats up these movies. I wonder what messages he's getting. I also wonder where these kids get the money for food and gas and how they're going to describe this adventure on their college admissions essays.
Uma's having a bad hair day.
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