Percy And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Director: Chris Colombus
Writers: Craig Titley, Joe Stillman, Rick Riordan (author)
Starring: Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson
Release Date: February 12, 2010
Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

Based on the incredible children‘s novels, and directed by Chris Columbus, Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lighting Thief is only the first installment of what’s to be another ridiculous, money making franchise that will just empty your pockets. So do yourself a favour and empty them another way. Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is a dyslexic, misunderstood teenager living in New York City with his mother and her disgusting pig of a boyfriend. One day on a field trip at school, with his best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) and handicapped teacher, Chiron (Pierce Brosnan), Percy discovers he is a demi god (half human, half god) from a teacher-turned flying beast that tries to kill him. Percy discovers that Grover is really his protector, that’s half goat and his teacher is really a centaur. Percy’s mom takes him to a camp that is filled with demi gods like Percy. Here he discovers that his father, who he’s never met, is really Poseidon. On the way though, while fighting a Minotaur, his mother dissolves into thin air. Percy is taken to this camp because the gods accuse him of stealing Zeus’s lightning bolt, which he didn’t do. When Percy finds out Hades’s has his mother, he, Grover and his new friend Annabeth set out on a quest to the Underworld to find her, and return Zues’s bolt to him before the summer solstice. Will time run out? Greek Mythology is finding it’s way back into pop culture with this movie and the new remake of Clash Of The Titans. Many parents are taking their kids to this movie because they think it will be educational. If you really want to educate your kids, they should read the original novels written by Rick Riordan. Newcomers Logan Lerman and Alexxandra Diadro could very well be the best actors of our generation, but who could honestly tell with the script they were given. Brandon T. Jackson was hilarious in Tropic Thunder in 2008, and if I ever enjoyed any part of this movie it was because of.  Unfortunately for Jackson, he is typecast as the loud mouth, black, ladies man of a best friend to the main character and everyone knows it. Horrific lines drown other great actors like Catherine Keener, Uma Thurman, Steve Coogan and Rosario Dawson. Director Chris Columbus has a thing for children’s films with Harry Potter 1 & 2, which were both great films and Adventures In Babysitting.  So how could he take a wonderful children’s series, with a great adult cast and flush it down the toilet. Maybe it was the script, maybe it was the special effects, but something, at some point went wrong with Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. This disaster is filled with bad acting, poor writing, and laughable action sequences. Damn it all to Hades.

Valentine's Day

Director: Gary Marshall
Writer: Katherine Fugate
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Emma Roberts
Release Date: February 12, 2009
Lengh: 2 hours 5 minutes

When almost all of Hollywood comes together for a movie, why does it have to be a badly written romantic comedy? Chick Flick director Gary Marshall (Pretty Woman) has assembled an impressively large cast of celebrities in Valentine’s Day. But the exciting stories get traded in for the exciting faces. I’m going to try to explain the plot of this movie, now, so don’t hold your breath. Ashton Kutcher plays Reed, the head of a flower shop, who proposes to his workaholic girlfriend Morley, played by Jessica Alba. Throughout the movie Reed delivers flowers to people with his co-worker Alphonso (George Lopez). Reed is a best friend with a schoolteacher named Julia (Jennifer Garner), who has recently started a relationship with a handsome surgeon (Patrick Dempsey). One of Julia’s 10 year old students, Edison is planning on delivering flowers to Julia, as he is in love with her. Edison is being taking care of by his ever-loving grandparents played by Hector Elizondo and Shirley Maclaine. Edison’s teenage babysitter Grace (Emma Roberts) is planning on having sex with her boyfriend Alex (Carter Jenkins) for the first time on Valentine’s Day. Their friends at school Felicia (Taylor Swift) and Willy (Taylor Lautner) have a cute relationship as well. Those are the main components of the film. If I explained anymore this would be a 12-page review. There are three major problems with having a large ensemble cast. The first is that each storyline gets cut down to 5 minutes and feels rushed. The second problem is that the more plots there are the more plots you aren’t going to care about and the third problem is that the more beautiful people there are on screen, the more you forget about certain storylines and begin to get extremely confused with who’s who. And due to the shortened screen time of each plot, some plots seemed completely pointless and that they were just there to show off more celebrities, like “hey, we have Jamie Foxx and Queen Latifah too!” Comparing this film to a similar romantic comedy that came out last year, He’s just not that into you, Valentine’s Day doesn’t have a main storyline that the audience can connect to. I suppose Ashton Kutcher’s character is the protagonist of the film, but his storyline involves 8 other characters, so the audience doesn’t know what the point is to his story. It is especially irritating that we are supposed to sympathize for beautiful women like Jessica Beil and Jessica Alba, that can’t get a date on Valentine’s Day. Let’s all feel bad for them while they are on the cover of every other magazine that comes out. Off the top of my head Jennifer Garner, Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Taylor Swift, and Ashton Kutcher had memorable performances in this movie that I quite enjoyed. Most of the other actors, I have nothing against but their story and their cheesy lines unfortunately drown out their good performances. This movie will definitely be a treat for women of all ages, with McSteamy (Eric Dane) and McDreamy (Patrick Dempsey) from Grey’s Anatomy and the hottest werewolf around, Taylor Lautner from New Moon. It’s unfortunate, but this film came off as just a way to promote every actor’s career, like Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift, Patrick Dempsey and Bradley Cooper. Most of the actors in this mediocre movie wont take a hit to their careers because every one of them was only on screen for 20 seconds, so none of them were the stars of the movie. Director Garry Marshall did some great films, like Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, but his recent films like Raising Helen and Georgia Rule, haven’t quite measured up to his previous work.