The Lightning Thief is entertaining, magical, inventive, and powerful – but it is most certainly not “the next Harry Potter”.

I read Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief, the first in the Percy Jackson and the Olympian series, mainly because it was en route to becoming a film, and also because I am a sucker for overly popular, strangely addicting series that target 12-year-old children.

I like the idea behind Percy Jackson.  Riordan took an age old, overdone concept (magical world, “the chosen one”, big adventure, blah blah blah) and stirred it up by incorporating accurate allusions to Greek Mythology.  In the beginning, Percy Jackson (played by newcomer and most likely America’s new favorite boy crush, Logan Lerman) seems like a regular kid.  But soon he learns that he is a “demigod” – the offspring of a mortal human and a Greek God or Goddess – and his father is Poseidon, God of the Sea.

Percy is startled when his best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) abruptly removes his pants to reveal goat legs, and explains that he is a satyr (half man, half goat) who was sent to protect Percy from monsters who believe he stole his Uncle Zeus’ powerful Lightning Bolt.  A complicated series of events follow, and soon Percy is embarking on a journey across the country with Grover, as well as Athena’s daughter Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), to find the Lightning Bolt, enter the Underworld, and trade the Bolt for Percy’s mother (Catherine Keener), who has been strategically stolen by Hades.

Mythological beings, intricately woven in to the plot, make the film more interesting – many of them big name stars, like Uma Thurman as a very creepy Medusa, Rosario Dawson as Hades’ wife Persephone, and Pierce Brosnan as Percy’s teacher Chiron, a friendly centaur (this film may be worth seeing for no other reason than to watch him trot gleefully around on horse legs).

But even Brosnan’s happy galloping can’t save The Lighting Thief from its biggest flaw:  the fact that a fairly long clip of a Ke$ha song appears in one of the scenes.

Or, from its second biggest flaw: the fact that the film adaptation of The Lightning Thief is absolutely NOTHING like the book.  Never in my life have I witnessed such blatant plot and character changes from book to screen.  Twelve-year-olds appeared to be 18, entire locations and important plot pit stops were removed, and the book’s villain was entirely eliminated from the movie.

As I exited the theatre, my eyes fell upon a 10-year-old boy in front of me, pouting with his head down and his arms crossed.  I entered the elevator with him as he exclaimed angrily, “I’m glad we didn’t pay for this. It would have been SUCH a rip-off.”  His elderly grandma then comforted him with her own anger, stating, “I can’t believe it. They left out ALL of the MAIN things.”

Great job, Chris Columbus. Rest easy with the knowledge that you’ve drawn thousands of avid young readers in to theatres nationwide, only to send them (and possibly their grandmothers) home with broken hearts.

My advice: if you plan to see this movie, do not read the book first.  If you have already read the book, do not see this movie.  If you are able to recognize literature and filmmaking as two completely different art forms, then enter this film with an open mind and you may find the simple story, childish humor, admirable special effects, and heartfelt characters quite enjoyable.