Percy Jackson

Last night was a blast. Squirt and I met my friend Shea and her son Will for our movie night. Four people who loved Percy Jackson going to see the movie on opening night- total geeks. I even bought tickets earlier in the day and arrived fifteen minutes early for the movie. Who believes this about me? It's true. Shea is one of those people who is always on time, so I didn't want to disappoint. (Interesting fact about me. ALL of my friends are timely. They must get so annoyed with me.) Anyway, being early didn't matter. We still had to sit on the third row of the theater. It took some getting used to, but I handled being that close without complaining too much. After all, the night wasn't about me.

Will sat there in silence the entire movie, while Squirt chit chatted throughout most of it. He is so like his dad!

I was a bit scared about this movie because of the director. He's fine and all, did the first two Harry Potter movies, which were enjoyable until you saw what every other director has done with the series. I didn't want to be able to tell that this was a Chris Columbus movie. While it was definitely Chris Columbus, it wasn't bad. There were huge changes, which would have bothered me more if I had recently read the book. The acting was decent enough for a kid movie. Sounds like a good enough movie, right?

What went wrong? Well, the audience for this movie (and book) is about eight years old to maybe fifteen years old. The eight year olds are just starting the series this year and the fifteen year olds read the fifth book last spring. They have been waiting for this movie for at least three years. Nothing in these books was inappropriate. Yes, there were a few things to explain to an eight year old, but nothing sexual in these books until maybe book five where there is a kiss. The movie was a completely different story. The girls who were supposed to be Aphrodite's daughters, and therefore beautiful, were identified by their slinky bikinis. The scene where the main characters are supposed to be playing video games in a casino is instead a scene where the kids eat Lotus flowers at a nightclub. You could totally tell the kids were "on" something. The entire scene was sexual and inappropriate for kids, even my fourteen year old. It was a PG movie. When we read the book, we imagined a huge arcade type of place, not a night club with people acting high on lotus flowers.

Lance asked me if I was uncomfortable watching those scenes with Squirt. I wasn't and was actually able to discuss my opinions with him. I'm not sure if he fully appreciated what I said, but as a mom, I was really happy to have this opportunity to discuss what I found wrong with those scenes in the movie.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, I just thought the changes that were made for the sake of money, I'm sure, didn't need to happen. Afterwards, we went to eat and sat around and talked. It was really nice to spend an evening with a good friend who I don't see very often and my oldest who I don't get to spend a lot of alone time with either.

Thanks for hanging with the other kids, Baby. Hope your evening was as fun as mine!