Becky and I took the boys and Bianca to see the new movie Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief on opening week at the AMC theaters in Highlands Ranch, CO. The Fandango website at Percy Jackson and the Olympians describes the movie as follows:
“Trouble-prone teen Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out school — but that’s the least of his problems. The gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters seem to have walked out of the pages of Percy’s Greek mythology texts and into his life…”
The Review
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is based on a children’s book series kind of like Harry Potter in a young boy who has magical powers, but instead of being a wizard he’s the son of the ancient Greek god. I started reading this book, but I didn’t like it quite as much as Conroy and his friends did. It’s a huge hit though since the girl sitting next to us in the film was seeing it for the second time after opening night!
Conroy didn’t like it as much as Corban since he had read the books and it was quite a bit different than the books. For example, the heroin girl, who is the daughter of Athena in the book has blonde hair, but in the film she is a brunette. That didn’t sit well with Conroy, but the whole story was bit too silly for Becky and I. I think I would rather see Clash of the Titans in April and see how they deal with the gods of ancient myth and legend.
One thing of interest, is that if you read the Book of Enoch, which is mentioned in the book of Jude in the Bible it talks about how the angels came down to Earth and had children with women and created “hero’s of old, men of renown”, see Genesis 6:1-4, which were also the giants mentioned throughout various places of the Old Testament. The most famous of which is Goliath, who David slew with God’s help to become King of Israel. Goliath was over 11 feet tall, so that would definitely be a huge man even by NBA standards and could have been considered “god like” by many people of ancient times.
I find it quite fascinating that the ancient Greeks had this same belief that their “gods” came down and had relations with women to create what were known as demi-gods, such as Hercules, Achilles and others, which is what Percy Jackson is in this film. There is a very good essay on this topic from a Biblical perspective called “Giants: Heroes of Old” that is online, if you care to read it and sheds some light onto how many ancient “myths” may not be myths after all depending on what you believe.
In the end, this film was entertaining and our kids really liked it. I thought it was a good rental and so did Becky, but all three of our kids thought it was definitely Worth The Trip.
John – ** Rentalz
Becky – ** Rental
Conroy – *** Worth The Trip
Bianca – **** Don’t Miss It
Corban – **** Don’t Miss It
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