It’s fair to call Percy Jackson and the Olympians one of the year’s most anticipated shows, but will a trip to Camp Half-Blood live up to the hype?
Meet Percy Jackson (Walker Scobell), a 12-year-old with bad grades, a discipline problem, ADHD and dyslexia. And to top it all off, weird stuff happens around Percy the he can’t just explain.
His world starts to get some clarity on a school trip to the museum, where an unexplained incident results in his expulsion from school when his best mate Grover Underwood (Aryan Samhadri) throws him under the bus.
Returning home to his mother Sally (Virginia Kull), she finally reveals the truth – that Percy’s absent father is actually a Greed God, Poseidon to be exact.
Being a demigod, Percy is reaching the age where monsters can more easily sense his whereabouts, hence the incidents. Grover is a goat-legged satyr, tasked with escorting Percy to Camp Half-Blood, where demigods train themselves for protection, bond with fellow demigod children, and per mythology tradition, go on quests to prove their strength.
After the setting-up in episode one, it’s episode two where the show really hits its stride with Percy’s arrival at Camp Half-Blood. Here we meet centaur Chiron (Glynn Turman), who just happened to be disguised as Percy’s Latin teacher; Camp director Dionysus (Jason Mantzoukas), known more affectionately as Mr D; and fellow campers Luke Castellan (Charlie Bushnell), bully Clarisse La Rue (Dior Goodjohn), and Annabeth Chase (Leah Sava Jeffries), the cunning daughter of Athen who will join Percy on a quest that might just save the gods from killing each other.
Author Rick Riordan adapts the first book in his Percy Jackon series, The Lightning Thief, joining forces with Jonathan E. Steinberg who wrote the first two episodes. Fan favourite moments are fleshed out and explored, and fans new and old will be hooked on this new iteration of the beloved story. The main trio are cast perfectly, with huge props to the adult cast and fresh faces of the camp members.
Take a trip to Camp Half-Blood this holiday season is one of the best book-to-screen adaptations yet.
5 Stars
The first two episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians are now available to stream on Disney+ with a new episode every Wednesday.
