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 There
is a scent of mild panic in the air around Hollywood. The bonanza known
as the Harry Potter series is coming to an end and with it goes one of
the few viable and wildly successful recent family film franchises. The
series has dominated the box-office since its first film in 2001, Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and shows no sign of slacking as it
heads into the final chapter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
which has been obligingly stretched into two parts, thus keeping the
dream alive - and the money rolling in - a little bit longer. Still,
where is the next contender for the Harry Potter crown? The search for
a replacement has led to some interesting failures like Lemony Snicket:
A Series of Unfortunate Events and the tragic botching of Philip
Pullman’s brilliant The Golden Compass. Who better then to turn to in
this time of need than the man who started the ball rolling?
Director Chris Columbus spearheaded Harry Potter’s transition from
wildly successful children’s books to wildly successful movie
adaptations. Wouldn’t it be natural to assume that knew a thing or two
about doing the same for another popular instance of kiddie-lit?
Columbus’ adaptation of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians:
The Lightning Thief certainly sounds like a prime candidate for the next
big family film king; a troubled New York schoolboy discovers that he is
the love child of the Greek god Poseidon after being accused of stealing
the lightning bolt weapon belonging to the father of the gods (and
his uncle), Zeus. Percy discovers what being the son of a Greek god
means as he and his best friend, Grover – a satyr and Percy’s protector
in disguise - and Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, mount a quest to
retrieve the bolt and find the true lightning thief before a war between
the gods catches humanity in the middle. Great, a modern-day story that
mixes the magic of Greek mythology, I’m on board.
Unfortunately, the sinking feeling I had upon realising that Columbus
was indeed directing this film was, as usual, correct. Columbus’
mishandling of The Lightning Thief only validates what I’d thought; his
success with the first two Harry Potter films {- the second being
2002’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets} was a fluke. They
were absolutely fool-proof (- or in this case, Columbus-proof)
properties that no amount of terrible direction could spoil. Not so
with The Lightning Thief, where there’s less of the overwhelming magic
and stunning visuals of J.K. Rowling’s world that hid what an awful
filmmaker Columbus is. If one looks at the progress of the main trio of
child actors in the first two Potter films, they are consistently
terrible, overacting and mugging willy-nilly. Luckily for Columbus, his
refusal to get solid performances out of his child actors was smothered
by the amazing production design and fantastic effects that were
required for that series. I couldn’t say why but Columbus infantilises
everything in his grasp, dumbing down all aspects of his films (-
ostensibly for the sake of the children in the audience, who really are
much more together than he thinks) and hoping the strength of the
material carries him through. So it goes with The Lightning Thief,
Columbus clips along, giving no depth to any of his characters and
outside of one or two CGI instances, making darn sure the action never
gets intense enough to be too scary. When the parent of a character is
believed to have been murdered right before that person’s eyes, there’s
not a tear in sight or a moment of grief or anger shown, and even so,
according to the few moments the incident is mentioned in the script
that parent isn’t actually dead; they’re only “gone”. Feh.
With
The Lightning Thief, Columbus rather egregious not only doesn’t shy away
from Harry Potter comparisons, but seems to embrace them; placing the
unfortunately named Camp Half Blood, where young demigods like Percy,
i.e. love children of mortals and Olympians go to harness their
Greek-god given powers and learn to battle. (Why do they battle and
battle with real swords and armour, I don’t know and like so many things
in the film is not explained.) The camp itself looks like a sad
outpost somewhere on the Hogwarts grounds and the similarity of a coed
camp to Harry Potter’s well-known boarding school are unmissable. So is
the venerated treatment Percy gets; being a legend before he ever knew
his own origins and treated like such by all the other campgoers. Not
having read the books, I don’t know if it feels this samey to begin
with, but in Columbus’ hands there’s no finesse or dressing it up to
feel other than glaring déjà vu. Even the modern poppy trappings of one
of the camp member’s high tech video game and computer layout, nor an
overlong indulgent trip to Las Vegas on Percy’s quest to clear his name
make any difference. Even the CGI effects look like leftovers from the
Potter pool; a hydra brings to mind The Chamber of Secret’s Basilisk
times five, Percy’s flying Chuck Taylors seem to have borrowed its
delicate wings from Harry’s Quidditch snitch, while other effects look
dated and cheap, like something out of a late nineties’ video game.
Sadly
similar is the wildly uneven acting that signifies any Columbus venture
with a young cast. He has the benefit of Logan Lerman, who deftly
played a young George Hamilton in My One and Only last year, as Percy.
Despite a shallow script that always has one eye on the clock (-
except when it hasn’t, then time stops dead) sacrificing action set
pieces and exposition for any range or depth of character, Lerman does
the best he can with what was probably no direction at all, but the
weight of everything that’s wrong with this wildly uneven mess is too
much for the young man. The only spark of life comes from Brandon T.
Jackson, who was such fun in last year’s Tropic Thunder as Percy’s
half-goat pal, Grover. Jackson throws every adlib he can at the screen,
occasionally hitting, but the barrage of his attempts to hold up
whatever momentum isn’t there can be annoying. The Lightning Thief
boasts a ton of cameos from amazing actors who should really have known
better, but were probably fooled by Columbus’ Harry Potter fluke. I’m
guessing that Columbus guiltied Pierce Brosnan into appearing as a
curly-tressed centaur by reminding him how much money Mrs. Doubtfire
inexplicably made. The sight of Kevin McKidd once again in short
skirted ancient garb, as in his days on the HBO series Rome, could never
give me any pain, however watching him try to wring some depth out of
the flyweight script and Columbus’ meager directing skills is pitiful.
This is the same sad circumstance for top actors like Sean Bean,
Catherine Keener and Joe Pantoliano. The only ones who seem to be
having any fun are Uma Thurman, camping the Tartarus out of her Medusa,
and Rosario Dawson as Persephone, the long-suffering kidnapped bride of
buffoonish underworld god Hades (- played by an eerily Tim Burton-esque
Steve Coogan), who relieves with her misery in creative and sexy
ways. Neither is nearly enough to make anyone forget the mess this film
is. For something that seems as workman-like and pacing-obsessed as The
Lightning Thief is, my only marvel is how the film feels like it goes on
forever.
As may
have perhaps been Columbus’ intent, only the very smallest in your
pantheon will be fooled or amused by the crass ineptitude and lost
potential of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
Feb.
11th, 2010
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