Who stole my lightning?

We missed this one in the theatre, but thanks to technology, I recently watching this flick. I had reservations about seeing it in the theatre. The kid looked like a punk, I thought they would cheese up the Greek mythology by having it in present day America, and I was skeptical about the amount of Greek Mythology was in the movie.

I was the wrong. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (and yes, I think the title is too long, even though it's based on the book, fine, then the BOOK'S TITLE is too long!) is a blast.

Percy didn't turn out to be quite so bad. I wasn't super-dying to follow him around personally (I was more interested in the Greek mythology...duh...), I also didn't want to punch his lights out, either. At least, not after the original 15 minutes. Percy's sidekick, the satyr (sp?), the half-goat, half-human protector of him, can be somewhat annoying (stereotypical black smart-aleck sidekick, anyone?), but hey, at least he was interesting, visually. The other companion, the daughter of Athena, was pretty pumped. At least they mentioned that Athena was a master battle strategist (which plays in an unimportant, but somewhat entertaining scene).

This is all well and good, but here's the meat of it: yes, there are creatures and myths and stuff from Greek Mythology. A LOT of it. Maybe too much? Maybe they tried to pack too much in? You can be the judge of that, but hey, at least we got it. They go to the Underworld, they go to Mount Olympus, Percy has Zeus' thunderbolt at one point (and it is an awesome weapon), Percy himself has powers, all to do with water, which makes sense, considering he's Poseidon's son, there's a quest, there's monsters to destroy, there's centaurs, a minotaur, lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! There's just a lot happening in this film.

I liked the little things too, though. I liked Percy is dyslexic, because he can only read ancient Greek, because that's what his brain is wired to read. I like the flying shoes. I like all that stuff. I am glad that they really took the legends, and tried to make them cool, and not make fun of them. I liked the whole quest. I just really liked this movie, period, and if you're at all interested in the myths of ancient Greece (I got tired of saying Greek Mythology, all the time), then check this movie out. You won't be disappointed.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

I bid thee a fond Greek Mythology

- Stephenstein

It's only paranoia if they're not really after you

Shutter Island. What can I say? If you want a movie that leaves you sitting there for most of the picture saying "What in the blue HELL is going on here?", then this film is for you. If you're not that sort of person, then stay away.

While I was watching this film, there was only 2 alternatives about what was going to happen. I'm not going to tell you what the alternatives are, because that will give away the ending to this movie, and most of what is good with this movie has to do with the ending. Scorsese plants a few clues to what this ending is in the film, but you really have to know what you're looking for in order to spot them.

So, DiCaprio and Ruffalo are up on Shutter Island (think Alcatraz, only in Boston Harbour instead of the San Francisco Bay), and all sorts of weird things start to happen. What the trailer misleads is that DiCaprio was not aware of how weird Shutter Island is. He is aware...in fact, he's on a mission that has nothing to do with his investigation. Once again, I refuse to give away this mission, because hey, isn't it awesome enough that he has a pre-determined purpose instead of just stumbling across something?

Anyhow, this film has the look and feel of Cape Fear, probably the last thriller Scorsese made before this movie. There's a lot of moodiness, bad weather, dark tunnels, water dripping, stylistic music cues, and just overall a rich atmosphere. I will say this for filmmakers today, I'm not impressed with a lot of what they come up with, but atmosphere doesn't seem to be a problem. The atmosphere is just really well done in this film, and it's obviously fairly early that Shutter Island is not easy to leave.

So, how did I feel about the ending? I'm a little half-and-half on it. While, as I said there was only one real alternative for the movie, the thing is that with either possible ending, you're going to leave someone unsatisfied. That bothers me a bit, as I feel that an ending should really suit the story; a great ending is not something that could be argued about (a perfect case is The Usual Suspects, in my opinion), but with this one, I feel that people could be pissed off with either possible ending, which raises some questions, doesn't it?

I did like the film, though. I like DiCaprio, I liked the atmosphere, and I did like trying to figure out what was going on. It's not a movie that I'm going to rave about how good it is, but I will say it's pretty solid, and worth checking out, if you're curious.

On a slight side note, there were these 2 younger girls sitting right beside me, and they kept laughing through this film, presumably at the mental illness portrayed in the film. Isn't it a nice state of affairs that someone with mental illness is the object of ridicule by the youth of our society? Then again, the youth of our society is 99 percent expendable anyway, so I wonder if they would find that funny? I do.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I bid thee a fond goodnight.

- Stephenstein