Bad Movie Drinking Game - Percy Jackson 1 & 2

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief was one of the first bad movie drinking games my boyfriend and I did together, and it remains one of the best ever. Its sequel, Sea of Monsters, was a close second. If you sincerely love this movie, or any of the movies I will ever describe as "bad," please know that badness is not an objective trait or even a negative quality. All movies can bring joy and are art.

Because it was early in our journey into drinking games, this list is short and largely composed of rules that would later become stock rules (which can be found here), or were taken from another website. It took us a while after this point to figure out the art of creating our own rules, but this stage was an important stepping stone. Here are our rules, including relevant ones from the stock list. Drink every time you feel/observe:

1. Someone says "Percy Jackson"

It is shocking how many times people just say the protagonist's full name. I'm not sure what the film was trying to convey with this choice. Maybe build brand/name recognition? Maybe they felt like people calling Harry by name in the Harry Potter films was part of the style of young adult (YA) movie adaptions? Or maybe that's just what hormonal, posturing teens do in movies. Perhaps it's a little bit of all three.

A second, related rule was to drink whenever the character Annabeth, played by Alexandra Daddario, has an entire line that is just her breathlessly saying "Percy."

2. Historically inaccurate representation of Greek mythology

I'm not a stickler for historical accuracy in fiction, especially because this story takes place in the modern world. I sincerely believe that, in fiction, all that really matters is creating a compelling story in an internally consistent world. However, Greek mythology is essential to the story, and pop history factoids of dubious accuracy are dropped throughout the movie as world-building fodder. As a history nerd it got on my nerves, so on this list this goes.

3. Pop culture reference

This is a good candidate for the stock rule list because while only a minority of movies do this, the bad movies that use this tool use a lot. Edgy teens love references to their favourite existing IPs right? Right???

4. Exposition

A stock rule but it's especially relevant for this movie. Like any YA fantasy novel adaptation, there's a lot of lore to unload. It doesn't necessarily do it well, but it sure does plenty of it.

5. An actor who is too good for the movie

This movie is loaded with a-list actors. My theory is that it was sold to them as the next Harry Potter. Over the course of all eight Harry Potter movies, practically every character actor in Britain made an appearance. What a great opportunity for American actors to get in on the ground floor, right? Right???

6. Main Character Syndrome

I once saw a review of another YA fantasy novel movie adaptation that referred to the movie as "another get-special-quick story." That perfectly encapsulates what goes on in this movie. Although Percy has only just showed up in this secret world of Greek mythological children, he's the most talented, special, important person around. The same could be said about a lot of stories where the protagonist is new to the world, but sometimes it's handled better than others.

7. Pop song

Like lots of movies, Percy Jackson relies on well-known pop songs to inject the movie with energy and emotions that the filmmaker fails to render.

8. Cringe

Bad jokes intended to pander to a teenaged audience, checked-out actors delivering poorly written lines, adult Rosario Dawson hooking up with a character who is supposed to be a high school student. Anything that makes you feel a twinge of cringe.

8. Bad CGI

The CGI in these movies is mostly fine. Except for this. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Sometimes I walk away from these movies feeling like it was a god-awful film with very few redeeming qualities. Sometimes I can see that it's not a terrible movie but still pretty bad. And sometimes I end up sincerely enjoying it, even though I can recognize it's a bad movie, in my opinion. Percy Jackson and its sequel are examples of the latter. The movies are high budget, high energy, and competently made, in the sense that the lighting, shooting, editing, and writing make sense. Before heading into a bad movie drinking game, there's always the risk it'll just end up being kind of boring. Percy Jackson is far from boring. It holds a special place in my heart as the movie that kicked off my love of drinking game movies.