“As adapted from the first installment of Rick Riordan’s kid-lit adventure saga, “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” begins with the sound of thunder and the absence of lightning. As Zeus (Sean Bean) explains to his bother Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) atop the Empire State Building, someone’s stolen Zeus’ mighty bolt. Zeus suspects Poseidon’s abandoned son, because while the gods are forbidden conflict, their offspring are not. But Poseidon’s son Percy (Logan Lerman) doesn’t have the bolt, and doesn’t even know his divine heritage. But Percy’s about to be brought up to speed, and fast, because finding the bolt will be the key to saving his mother Sally (Catherine Keener) from a Hell far more literal than figurative.
Directed by Chris Columbus (“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets“), “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” is another attempt to recreate the on-screen Potter phenomenon, with kids (late teens here) hurled into mythical magical battles. There’s a done-in-one feeling to “Percy Jackson,” though, with no obvious setup for a sequel or a series-long arc. That modesty, probably partially motivated by how Fox doesn’t want to get “Golden Compass“-ed if “Percy Jackson” flops, ill befits an epic saga, and may disappoint fans of the books. But Columbus knows this territory well, even if the world of Percy Jackson is a bit more violent and visceral and less warm and whimsical than that of Harry Potter. (When Percy takes refuge at “Camp Half-Blood,” the training camp for demigod Olympian offspring with deadbeat dads and missing moms, he’s immediately thrust into swordplay opposite his peers; it’s like “300” summer camp, and a touch intense.)”
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