With Twentieth Century Fox films rarely being allowed to excel by that company's executives, Percy Jackson and the Lightning thief had only two options when it came to it's artistic success. Safe, bland and solid (Night at the Museum 2 / Hit Man). Or, safe, bland and a complete, apocalyptic disaster (Wolverine / Max Payne). Fortunately for Fox, it's the best we could hope for as Percy is a derivative teenage fantasy adventure with adequate production values and decent special effects.
It's obviously trading on the Harry Potter brand but market researchers have aged their heroes to tweens to get a more desirable class of demographic in cinemas. This is brisk, popcorn fluff with a cool Greek mythological bent (kind of a contemporary Clash of the Titan's quest for the high school crowd). But as you'd entirely predict it never raises above the average in any aspect of it's execution. Cast, direction, photography, score, script, production design and effects are up to scratch and all involved can sleep well at night. The only person of note is an especially sexy and alluring Rosario Dawson, but that's about it. You can watch this quite safely in the knowledge that on exiting the movie theatre, you won't want to harm the production team, yourself or others due to celluloid induced misery. But don't expect to go to work the next day and rave to your mates.
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