This one time, my sister (who is hilarious and sometimes performs magic spells) asked my mom (who is exasperated and came from Norway) if she's sad that "they don't have Valhalla anymore." Because, you know, nowadays Norway is all bonkers about atheism, and so Norwegians just drift into a pragmatic and well-appointed silent oblivion after they die instead of going to a majestic golden hall in the sky with an eagle butler and a never-ending font of pickled herring. "Hhhhhhhhhh," sighed my mom, like she does. "That's like asking a Greek person if they worship Zeus."

Well here's my question, Mom "Hhhhhhhhhh" West: WHAT IS SO WRONG WITH BELIEVING IN ZEUS? Zeus makes at least as much sense to me as Jesus or whatever, plus he is about a zillion times better at partying. So let's just sit here for a minute and imagine my delight at the new movie Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Ahhhhhhh. Are you imagining it? I know, right?! My delight needs the seat-belt extender on the airplane! The fire department had to jaws-of-life the wall off of my delight's trailer! And a precocious runaway named Jesse had to help my delight jump the breakwater to escape the evil amusement-park owner and his pack of goons! What I'm saying is that it's BIG. BIG FAT DELIGHT.

What PJ&TO:TLT teaches us is that anyone (you or me, even) could go to Mount Olympus and party with Zeus 4ever, just so long as Poseidon banged our moms one time way back at the Jersey Shore. The movie is about this high-school man-child named Percy (Logan Lerman, adorbs) who—when his substitute English teacher turns into a monster and attempts to eat his face—discovers exactly that: He is the son of Poseidon (who is even better than Zeus, btw, because MERMAIDS!), and now, after a few weeks at demigod summer camp, he has to go on a totally kickass quest and save the earth.

In this universe, Greek myth and modern life merge in charming and unexpected ways (spoiler alert, if you give a shit): Medusa (Uma Thurman) is a dominatrix who sells garden statuary, the Hydra is a night janitor in Nashville, Pierce Brosnan is a centaur, the island of the lotus-eaters has been relocated to, surprise, Las Vegas. It's a kids' movie directed by Chris Columbus, so there's plenty of corny shit (they couldn't resist a "I guess we've all got daddy issues" joke), but the premise is fun enough and the monsters scary enough and the casting toothsome enough that I didn't even wince. More like Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The HEART THIEF, am I right? (Because you stole mine! You did!!!)