Percy Jackson And The Olympians Review: An Olympic Feat?

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the new series on Disney+. I have had the pleasure of seeing a couple of episodes, I think a little more than what's available. So it actually dropped early on Disney+. I was so excited. I was literally messaging you, John. And I was like, will you be able to watch it in time if it dropped when originally planned, which I think was something like midnight. And then as I was writing that to you, news broke that the episodes were out and we could watch them. So we watched them. I immediately started watching them as soon as we got done messaging. What do you think? I really liked it. Here's the thing. I'm not a big Percy Jackson fan. I feel like I was a little old when the books came out, so I didn't read them because I was in later parts of high school, so I wasn't really looking at young adult books to be reading. So I was never a big Percy Jackson fan. What was that face for? Because there's, I don't care how old. Yes, there's a lot of fantastic young adults there. I don't care how old I get. I will always be drawn to young adult novels. I agree with you now. 16, 17, 18-year-old John wouldn't have that opinion. That's fair, that's fair. When you don't know and you might be too cool to read this young adult book, all right, I get it, I get it. And I saw the two films that we got when they came out. And I wasn't super thrilled by them, but I love the concept of this story. So when I heard that there was gonna be a TV series, I immediately kind of piped up a little bit because to me, this seems like something. This world needs a little bit more time to breathe and a little bit more time to be fleshed out than a movie allows for. So giving it a series, even if it's just like a short series for the one book, is going to allow the world to feel a little bit more lived in, a little bit more fleshed out. There's gonna be a little bit more understanding to the why things are the way they are. And it's just going to, I think it's just going to be better for the story that's trying to be told to be given that little bit of space to breathe and spread out a little. I am very into this show thus far. I'm not gonna tell you I'm the biggest Percy Jackson fan, but I did read the first two books when the other movies came out. And I didn't love those movies, especially the second one, but I did think the first one was fine. It was solid enough. You can really feel the difference in this though with Rick Riordan's heavier involvement here. And I do also think as much as I love the actors who played the leads, I think they're all very talented in those original two movies. There's something that happens when you cast actors closer to the character's age that makes it feel like more honest, more lived in, more authentic. And that's what happens when you have Percy Jackson, of course, here is played by Walker Scobell, who I think is just one of the most talented young actors out there. Just whether it's a dialogue driven moment or just a look on his face, I think he is naturally capable of saying so much with less, which I think is very effective in this series in terms of making it feel grounded and real, even when all these fantastical things are happening around him. I think he is great. Leah Jeffries is playing Annabeth here. I think she's excellent too. She did that Idris Elba movie, which is one of the first things that I had seen her. And I'm like, oh, you are good. You've got what it takes to be here. And sure enough, she's giving me that same impression in this show. And then I also think Aryan Simhadri is great as Grover too. And that's a curious character to play, given the fact that he looks like he's as young as the others, but really he's 24. And I feel like he walks that line between feeling part of the group, but also like he's got this additional knowledge very, very well. I just, like, I love the three of them. I think a lot of the visual effects look real damn good. There's a couple of things in the first episode. Like I love the Mrs. Dodd stuff at the beginning in particular, just like the first part of the reveal, like the way she moves her arms. I'm like a little obsessed with that shot. I think it looks real good. And really everything after that, I think it's all solid stuff. And as far as the beginning of a series goes, I think these first few episodes suggest that we could have a real winner here. Yeah. I really want to talk about the production design because I love everything about the camp feels fantastic to me. It simultaneously looks like a place where if I was going to summer camp, that's what it would look like. While at the same time, still having that very Greek influence, still feeling very mystical while also grounded in reality to a certain degree. I just feel like it was so, like the tiny details of the world just feel a lot more real and a lot more lived in than I was expecting from just a, you know, from a series where you got to stretch a budget a little bit farther than a movie would. I just think that it is fantastic. And a lot, you know, you were speaking to the CGI. I think the CGI looks great. Also the monster design is just really great. That, I believe it was a Harpy was what Mrs. Dodds was. That's a Harpy, right? I'm trying to remember my Greek mythology. Don't ask me terms, man. I thought that she looked fantastic when that reveal happened and she just like unraveled and uncoiled into this monstrous thing. I like, I had to pause for a second because I was just like, that looks almost too good. And then the Minotaur also just looked fantastic at the end of the first episode. The whole thing, it just looks great. Like it is so much more higher budget and higher quality than I anticipated it being. And it just, it tickled me. Yeah, I'm very into it. I do think everything looks really good, but then again, you know, the other major thing you need in order to sell all that stuff is great performances. And there's one other that I really want to emphasize here. Virginia Cole, who plays Percy's mother, because that is a vital relationship to establish very quickly to reflect history and also this intense sense of loss, given what she has on the line in this episode. And, you know, when you only have like ultimately like 35 minutes to do that, probably a little less if you start counting her screen time in particular, what she's able to sell with Walker Scobell is really, really powerful and effective. So I just want to give her a little round of applause. Job well done. I think that particular relationship is vital to starting this series off on the right foot. And they very much did. She was very much the highlight of the first episode for me. Like as soon as she came on screen, I just, I bought her as his mother. And the moment where she was sitting there with Grover, like making him swear to her. I like that. I felt that, like she put her whole, her whole chest into that performance. It was so good. Yeah, some really powerful work across the board. I'm excited to see this story unfold in this particular format and where they go from here. And also just, you know, the audience response, because again, I'm not gonna say that I'm the biggest Percy Jackson fan. I have not read the entire series. I'm familiar with the source material. Again, I've read the first two books, but there's a lot of people out there who really, really love these stories. And I know it was really important to them to see a faithful adaptation. And I'm getting the sense that this is that. So I am especially excited to kind of get out there and see how they're responding to it. Because as someone who has felt that way about other book series, I know how important it could be. Like you have to take creative license sometimes, but you wanna feel like the thing that you love was honored and respected. And I just hope that it makes them feel that way. So we'll see how things go from here. Yeah, I hope, from what I've seen, I love it. Again, I think that it being a series, maybe they'll be able to avoid cutting so much from the book because I know that that was a complaint with the first film was that it deviated in some pretty large ways from the book. So I'm really hoping that the series is able to avoid that. And that, because I know that Percy Jackson fans have been very vocal about wanting a good adaptation and hopefully this is it for them. I think that, again, as an outsider looking in, it definitely seems like it, but we'll see what the fans have to say.