Seen at: Carmike 10, yesterday at 4:15 pm
The one thing that I really like about the Harry Potter series is that it is anti-eugenics. In the Potter series, the witches do not form a "blood" race per se, but can spring from any genetic combination. This issue is at the center of much of the controversy in the series.
What if you remade the Potter series but stripped this fact out, and made all the witches related by blood (as Malfoy in Potter wanted). Genetics becomes soley what determines whether or not you are extraordinary person. Your bloodline and birth are your destiny completely.
Well, this is Percy Jackson in a nutshell to me, a sad and ridiculous new entry into the "kids just want a cool adult mentor and a training academy" genre. It has all the charm and subtely of Nazi ideology (which too was based entirely on blood, and endeavored to embody the attitudes of the Pagan Olympian gods in modern society).
When this hit me, about forty minutes into the movie, it was all I could do not to walk out in protest. But wanting to see how the story turned out compelled me to stay. Besides I don't want to get in that habit.
The movie was an absolute disaster from the first scene, between Poseidon and Zeus. These are Greek gods? I know they were petty in the Iliad, but have they made no progress in the last several thousand years beyond this level of discourse.
And who gives a crap about the all-important magic lightning bolt, the macguffin of the story that is thrust into the plot gratuitously in the opening scene? You're really asking me to buy that all lightning in storms is created by Zeus with a magic light saber tool? I nearly fell out of my seat with derisive laughter at that point. It has been two hundred years since Ben Franklin's kite experiment. You have to do way better than this, at least if you want to have ancient mythology in a contemporary setting for a story (unless you want it to play it as a farce).
On a story level, it was just a failure. We surely needed a set-up to the theft of of the bolt, seen its power in action, and seen it being stolen without seeing by whom. All this could have been done in three minutes at the beginning of the movie. but there was zero---ZERO---set up of the essential mystery that drives the plot, or is supposed to drive it.
Instead the plot degenerates into something that reads like the instruction manual to a tired Nintendo game. The goal of the youthful heroic band of fighters becomes to find missing magic pearls hidden across the United States using a magic map that tells them where to find the next one.
In fulfiling this quest, the demigod heroes seem completely oblivious to any destruction they cause. Not surprisingly there are severe instances of the Law of Destruction of Museums and Monuments here. In particular we get to see the partial destruction of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tenn, as well as (get this) the Empire State Building. But it's all for a good story purpose, you see! I guess 9/11 really is history now. You can go back to wantonly smashing NYC skyscrapers, so long as you're the son of a god!
Here is Postmodern heroism in its glory: one's ability is determined completely by one's genetics. Moreover, you as the hero no longer risk life and limb to rescue your true love. That's offensive and unrealistic, and degrading to women to suggest a woman would ever need rescuing by a man. Instead you as the hero lust for the most powerful female warrior (cough, Avatar, cough). The female ideal is Super-Xena. She kicks your ass to earn your respect (somehow this makes her attracted to you, seeing you defeated) and you and she team up to go on a quest to save your mother.
Heroic quests to save mothers are, as far as I know, completely absent in classical mythology but seem to be becoming the standard fare for the Postmodern boy-man-hero (at least after the Star Wars prequels). I think this goes hand in hand with the destruction I mentioned before. A child seeking his mommy doesn't care whom he hurts, or what he breaks, to get back to her.
Manifestly this overworn theme (in this movie and in others like it) is all about the healing of the broken Postmodern family and home. In this case the forlorn and well-fed demigod children pine simply for a glimpse of their parents, sniff sniff. The whining got nauseating by the end. The human mother is of course rescued from Hades, but more importantly she throws out her abusive boyfriend whom she pretended to tolerate and love all these years only because of his powerful stench (I kid you not, this is exactly what happens).
The only part of the movie I enjoyed was a fun contemporary take on Medusa by Uma Thurman. Pierce Brosnan (one of the best actors in Hollywood for my money) also pulls his weight as a centaur, as best he can. Otherwise it was waste of screen time. Much of the cliche-ridden dialog seems to come right out of popular songs, e.g. "War is not the answer!" There were several other lines as bad as that, and I kept a running list during the movie, but somehow I've blocked them all out after leaving the theater.
I can only hope, as in the case with the Cirque du Freak: Vampire's Assistant last fall, that the first installment of this literary series is a sufficient flop to discourage sequels. I simply do not want to see another Percy Jackson movie again.
We have come so far from the classical Hollywood idea of democratic ability, in which bloodlines and genetics were always shown to be poor indicators of ability. This was invariably the message in classic Hollywood movies. Now (thanks again to George Lucas in part) most people won't even recognize eugenics propaganda when it hits them in the face, as in this movie.
Worst moment in the movie: when one of the characters implies that Barack Obama is the son of an Olympian god (at least that was the implication I got from the line). What awesome bloodlines our leader has, to do what he does, and be what he is! Perhaps we should change the Constitution to permanently give power to this race of benevolent elites?
So sad---a sickening waste of classical mythology on film. Bring on the new Clash of the Titans. Same hero, but in a true classical setting (where much more can be forgiven). But for god's (gods'?) sake, please let Perseus rescue Andromeda. I don't care whom it offends!
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