Theme: School

Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief (2010) – Logan Lerman and Pierce Brosnan

This movie is mildly entertaining. It occasionally features some good acting, including from the lead character Percy Jackson played by Logan Lerman, and occasionally from others too, such as: Grover, Percy’s protective Satyr, played by Brandon T Jackson; and Zeus, chief diety, played by Sean Bean; and even Pierce Brosnan as Mr Brunner aka Chiron, Percy’s mentor centaur/minotaur type thing.

However, this movie is equally full of attempted sacrilege and shallow lackadaisical expressions, just as you’d expect from any bunch of spoilt & corrupted yet naive and skin-deep Hollywood teenagers trying to play dieties for kicks & giggles above all else.

So it’s got its pros & cons like most movies, and I rank it fairly average among action movies rated by this website.

Although it’s full of a mix of mild entertainment and awkward drama, there is eventually a really cool action scene, but it takes until 100 minutes to deliver it. In that moment, Percy proves he’s the real son of Poseidon by unleashing his power over water, to defeat his enemy, the actual lightning thief, Luke, son of Hermes. It only lasts a matter of seconds though – not even a minute – and for this reason, I can’t rate this movie any higher than Bang Average irrespective the potential and quality it displayed occasionally.

Sequel: Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (2013)

This movie kicks off with a chunky dose of boredom, awkwardness and sacrilege – just as expected. It’s a bit weaker in storyline buildup than the last one, and the cyclops nymph who’s meant to be Percy’s half brother is not appealing to watch (and that’s an understatement). While there is some half decent action in this movie, and some unique plot characteristics, it’s generally a bit below the par set by the first in the series and for this reason it looks set for a decidedly Below Average rating.

This movie has an air of a kids’ TV drama series, with actors and acting standards to match. Unsurprisingly, Pierce Brosnan didn’t come back for this one – his character was a major figure again but played by someone else this time.

Although the teen drama series vibe never really lets up, the action and energy in the latter half of this movie kind of make up for its lack of substance early on, thus bringing the final rating close to average and similar to the original – probably slightly weaker, especially due to the poor start, but not by much, considering the well played back end.

Only The Strong (1993) – Mark Dacascos

Only The Strong, starring Mark Dacascos, is a bit of a cult classic. Aside from massively promoting Capoeira in America and the rest of the English speaking world at a time when it was relatively unheard of, this movie also launched one of the most popular songs to be associated with Capoeira: Paranauê – named after the oldest city in Paraná state, in Brazil, known for its port.

While most of the technical and cultural aspects of the Capoeira depicted in this movie are accurate, it still tends to push a more aggressive and performance-oriented version of Capoeira rather than the more deeply beautiful, balanced and responsive Fine Art side of it which is what really makes it special and differentiates it from mere cardio kickboxing mixed with breakdancing and gymnastics. It even gets a bit silly with unrealism, doing things like jumping spinning kicks around machetes. Still, even Bruce Lee had a more showy version of his martial art for the big screen, and Dacascos is clearly still a talented actor, athlete and martial artist even though his more acrobatic moves appear to be done by stuntmen – his character still does plenty of nice moves at appropriate times throughout this movie even with the bias towards showy stuff that isn’t always efficient or finessed.

The school students that Mark’s character teaches are mostly a good 10 years older than they should be too. That’s not a good look so far as convincing acting goes. Maybe they had casting issues?

As bad as the acting is though, this movie still captures certain emotions quite well. It takes the classic case of lost-cause delinquents at school being turned around into model human beings, and turns it into a really captivating experience for the most part.

The main antagonist, the chief drug dealer in town, played by Paco Christian Prieto, is pretty good. You may recognise him as Van Damme’s tall pool-fight opponent in Lionheart (1990). The old school teacher, played by Geoffrey Lewis, is also pretty good here. You may recognise him as playing Van Damme’s adopted father in Double Impact (1991). Most of the acting in this movie is weak, mainly due to poor casting, but these guys and of course Mark Dacascos are alright.

This movie is hardly as jam-packed in script as the average Indiana Jones or James Bond movie for example, but it contains enough action and uplifting vibes to warrant a rating just as good, forgiving its weak plot and bad acting throughout. I give it a solid OK – no more, no less. The music is generally good throughout – you could almost call it a musical, but in a martial arts and college kids genre.