Hollywood's haste and pressure to manufacture blockbuster franchises have resulted in some spectacular landmarks (Twilight, Transformers) and duds (Speed Racer, The Incredible Hulk -- twice) of late. But it has rarely allowed for a genuine curio like Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, the first of what Fox hopes will be at least five adaptations of Rick Riordan's hit kid-lit series. I say why not? Flaccid as this family-targeted romp can be, there's something to be said for seeing such campy, bizarro, mass-market craziness blown up for the decade to come.
Director Chris Columbus, who shepherded Harry Potter to his first two movie hits, takes on this titular, superpowered boy wonder with zeal -- maybe a little too much zeal to start with. Such is the curse of the origin story, in which a summit of Greek gods atop the Empire State Building results in Zeus accuses Poseidon's son of stealing his lightning bolt. The son -- whoever he is -- must return the bolt in two weeks, Zeus growls, "or there will be war
Except Poseidon's half-blood son didn't do it -- Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) was sitting at the bottom of a pool at his school the whole time, blissfully unaware of his roots in the Greek mythology family tree. He's never even met his father, which is just one of the problems he has to deal with in the troublesome human world. For starters, his mother (a supremely miscast Catherine Keener, her paycheck bulging from her pocket) married a deadbeat. Graver still are the constant reminders of learning disabilities that paralyze Percy in school and in life.
But as we'll soon learn, Percy is not learning-disabled. He's just better at reading his Dad's native tongue, which comes in pretty handy between attacks by vengeful, lightning-hungry Greek nemeses. Columbus and screenwriter Craig Titley have only two hours with us, so they dump this disclosure and about a hundred others -- Percy's best friend Grover is actually his satyr "protector," schoolteacher Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan) is a centaur at a camp for demigods, hot campmate Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) kicks ass with a sword -- in about 30 minutes flat. It's enough to make the viewer him- or herself feel learning-disabled; Brosnan trotting on four legs must be seen to be disbelieved.
All of which ultimately are part of Lightning Thief's odd charm. The bathos is almost quotably excessive ("I'm a loser! I'm dyslexic and I have ADHD!"), and I was often surprised by its indulgence in pop-culture references that no one under 25 would understand. And when Percy, Annabeth and Grover hit the road in a mission to save Percy's human mom (whom Hades kidnapped for the bolt's ransom), things just get crazy. Uma Thurman's Medusa is an endless supply of zingers wrung outlandishly into camp ("I used to date your Daddy!"); a security-guard detail-turned-five-headed hydra turns Nashville's Parthenon into a site of carnage and panic vaguely referencing the climax of Robert Altman's Nashville.
By the time the kids' quest reached Vegas -- where Lady GaGa, The French Connection, goat-hoof pedicures, and mission-threatening pot brownies "lotus flowers" coalesced in a WTF set-piece for the ages -- I was kind of dying for a sequel. And I didn't even know if I wanted it for the wrong reasons. After all, are Columbus and Titley merely hacks or evil geniuses of subversion? The audacity of setting Hell beneath Hollywood and Mount Olympus 600 stories above Manhattan seems too radical a move to dismiss, yet too obvious to take seriously. In any case, Lerman has a presence even with a mouth full of bad dialogue, and if he's gabbed himself out that Spider-Man reboot, then another sword-and-shield (and dyslexia-and-ADHD-and-hallucination) adventure might very well be worth it. And if there's a myth with a shorter title? Even better.