Saturday, April 24, 2010

The Lightning Theif


At the top of the Empire State Building, Poseidon (Kevin McKidd) meets with Zeus (Sean Bean), who comments that the storm clouds have no lightning and that his master bolt has been stolen. He blames Poseidon's son for the theft. Despite Poseidon's claims of his son's innocence, Zeus gives Poseidon 14 days to return it, lest war break out.
During a field trip to an exhibition of Greek and Roman art, teenager Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman), is lured away from the crowd by a Fury, Mrs. Dodds, disguised as his substitute English teacher, who then attacks him, questioning him about the lightning bolt. The incredulous Percy, who has no knowledge of this, is rescued by his Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan). After dispatching the Fury, Brunner gives Percy a sword disguised as a pen. On Brunner's instruction, Percy's best friend, Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), takes Percy to a training camp for demigods, Camp Half-Blood, along with Percy's mother, Sally Jackson (Catherine Keener). During their trip to the camp, Percy attempts to learn about his biological father from Sally, but they are attacked by a Minotaur. Although Percy and Grover, who is revealed to be a satyr, make it to the camp, its defenses prohibit entrance to Sally, who is captured by the Minotaur, and disappears before Percy. Percy engages the Minotaur with the pen, which turns into a sword named Riptide, eventually killing the creature with one of its horns.
In touring Camp Half-Blood, Percy learns that Brunner is the mythological centaur Chiron, and the camp's trainer, and that his (Percy's) father is the god Poseidon. He also meets Luke Castellan (Jake Abel), a son of Hermes, and Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario), a daughter of Athena. While at the camp, Percy learns that water has the power to heal his injuries, and allows him to manifest his magical abilities.
Hades later appears and reveals that Sally Jackson is his prisoner, and proposes she be traded for the master bolt. Chiron instructs Percy not to bargain with the god, but to go to Olympus to convince Zeus of his innocence. Percy sneaks away from the camp to travel to the Underworld, along with Grover and Annabeth, who secure for him from Luke a portable shield, flying shoes and a map to Persephone's (Rosario Dawson) pearls, which allow them to exit the Underworld.
At Aunty Em's Garden Emporium

THE CLASH OF THE TITANS


The film begins with a narration that explains the three Olympians who battled the Titans long ago: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Hades provides their means of defeating the Titans with his creation, the Kraken. After the Titans' defeat, Zeus created humans and ruled them while Poseidon ruled the sea, but Hades, having been deceived by his brother Zeus was forced to rule the Underworld, learns an alternative means of gaining power from humans different from his brothers receiving theirs from human devotion; through fear.
Millennia later, a fisherman named Spyros finds a coffin adrift in the sea, discovering a baby, Perseus, and his dead mother, Danaë, inside. Spyros decides to raise Perseus as his own. Years later, Perseus and his family are fishing when they witness a group of soldiers from Argos destroying a statue of Zeus as a declaration of war against the gods. Hades appears and commands harpies to massacre the soldiers before he himself destroys Perseus's family's fishing boat. Perseus tries to save his family, but to no avail, the surviving soldiers take Perseus back to Argos. During a feast for the returning soldiers King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia of Argos compare themselves and their daughter, Andromeda, to the gods much their daughter's dismay. After convincing his brother to let him loose on humanity to punish Argos for its defiance, Hades appears in the courtroom before killing the remaining soldiers while Perseus is unaffected. Revealing Perseus to be the demigod son of Zeus, and aging Cassiopeia to death, Hades threatens that if Princess Andromeda is not sacrificed to the Kraken, Argos will be destroyed in 10 days.
The king seeks the help of Perseus after he is placed in the dungeon. Perseus initially refuses until he meets Io, a woman who does not age as punishment for refusing to be seduced by a god. Io then reveals his conception was a punishment conducted by Zeus on Acrisius, the former king of Argos who was married to Danaë, for his actions against the gods. When Acrisius sets Danaë and the baby Perseus adrift in their coffin; an enraged Zeus struck Acrisius with lightning, leaving him hideously disfigured. After learning that killing the Kraken would allow him to have his revenge against Hades, Perseus accepts as he and Argos' finest soldiers embark on a quest to find the Stygian Witches with a pair of hunters and Io following. To counter this turn of events, Hades enlists Acrisius, now called Calibos, to kill off Perseus by giving him a bit of his power.