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When the Brea 5 re-opened its doors and was offering free movies, I recalled that the last movie I saw at that theater was Ghost World; I don't think at the time I knew that the theater would be closing. Nine years later, a wave of nostalgia washed over me when I walked into theater five and saw its chairs. While the lobby has gotten a makeover, the theaters are the same, and seeing the rows of chairs again brought back so many memories. My sister met her boyfriend (a theater employee) there, when he finally approached her after seeing her frequent the theater for years. We got to know several of the people who worked there, actually. I wonder where they all are now - have they found a direction in life? Most of them hadn't yet; we were all young and didn't know where we were headed then. I still remember when Ric came home from his semester in D.C., and he paged me, and I got the page while I was in the theater. I used the pay phone to call him back and accept his invite to hang out. We ended up hanging out for the rest of our lives.

The Brea 5 will always live on my heart as a foreign and independent movie theater and a place where I spent many of my formative movie-watching years, but now it's a slightly higher-end discount movie theater that features movies a month or so before they're released on DVD. For the opening week, the theater offered free admission to any movie. The only pick of the five that I hadn't seen was Percy Jackson. I had a mild interest in the movie because I like the young adult fantasy genre.

I had no idea who starred in Percy Jackson before I watched it. Sean Bean plays Zeus, Pierce Brosnan is Chiron, Steve Coogan is Hades, Rosario Dawson is Persephone, Kevin McKidd is Poseidon, and Uma Thurman is Medusa?! Why didn't I hear about this cast?

I forgot to mention that Catherine Keener was in the movie too. She offers the worst acting I've ever seen from her. What kind of casting agent thought she'd be good in this type of movie? She's so granola that she can't possibly fit in with a CGI world.

Keener plays the mother of Percy Jackson, a young kid who doesn't know he's a demigod (son of Poseidon). He thinks his father left his mom when he was young, but Poseidon was forced to leave his family. Now,hen Zeus thinks Poseidon's son stole his lightning rod, he threatens war on Earth.

The worst casting of the movie was for its star role, Logan Lerman, who admittedly isn't given much to work with, but can't quite handle the little he is given. To make matters worse, his sidekick is a satyr. The word satyr sounds cool, but a half-man half-goat isn't all that cool on the big screen. A lot of his satyr-who's-got-game antics are very painful to behold.

Well, Percy has a generic love interest with Annabeth, daughter of Athena. She joins him on his quest to rescue his mom, who has been kidnapped by Hades. Together with their goat friend, they have to collect pearls that will help them return from the underworld. They have to fight some mythical creatures to obtain them, save mom, and restore the lightning rod to Zeus, and all on a deadline.

Oddly enough, while watching the story unfold I could tell it was probably an entertaining book. It sounds like a creative way to introduce younger readers to the world of mythology and learn about its key players and their attributes. Percy is not unlike Perseus in his demigodhood and the places he visits are similar, but the visualization of this modern spin on mythology just doesn't work. The script is hokey, the actors aren't into it, and the special effects aren't very impressive.

I'm sure the idea of making this movie sounded like one with great potential, but the awe of the mythological world is missing here, and as a result, the whole thing feels pretty ho-hum.