Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

I don't remember 2010's Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief being all that big of a hit at the box office.  Shows how good my memory is, because here is the second film based on the series of novels by Rick Riordan.  Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters will be a lot of fun for kids up to a certain age.  I'd say around 12 or so.  As for me, while I can't quite recommend it, I did find the movie had a kind of goofy charm.  In fact, I think I may like this one a little bit more than the last movie.

For those who don't remember the last film, Percy Jackson (once again played by Logan Lerman) used to be an ordinary teen, until he found out that he was the son of Poseidon, God of the Sea.  These days, he spends his days at a camp for Half-Bloods, which is the term this movie uses for kids who are born to a mortal and a God. (I always thought they were called Demigods.) He still has his friends from the first movie, Annabeth, the daughter of Athena (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover the Satyr (Brandon T. Jackson).  Early on in this movie, he also finds out he has a half-brother, a cyclops with terrible depth perception named Tyson (Douglas Smith).  The kids who live at the camp are watched over by the God of Wine, Dionysus (Stanley Tucci), who is exasperated, because of a curse placed on him by Zeus that causes every glass of wine he pours to instantly turn into water.  He gets the film's best line the first time we see this happen, and he observes, "You know, the Christians have a guy who can do the opposite of this.  Now THAT'S a God!".

As the story begins, Percy is feeling down, because he hasn't really been able to do anything all that special since saving Olympus in the last movie.  He's beginning to feel like a "one quest wonder".  But then, an opportunity for adventure presents itself when it turns out that Luke (Jake Abel), the villain from the last movie, survived his previous battle with Percy, and has come up with a new plan to steal the mystical Golden Fleece.  He's plotting to revive the ancient god, Kronos, and wreak havoc upon Olympus.  In order to get to the Fleece before Luke, Percy and his friends have to find a way to travel to the Sea of Monsters, which is more commonly known as the Bermuda Triangle.  Along the way, there are some run-ins with some mystical monsters, a brief encounter with Hermes, the God of Speed (who now works for a postal service), and a few moments for Percy to bond with his newly discovered half-brother.

As an adventure, Sea of Monsters is pretty small stuff.  Despite taking some obvious inspiration from the Harry Potter films, this movie doesn't have half of that franchise's sense of danger or intensity.  We just never get the sense that Percy and his friends are ever in any real danger.  And when things finally do start look like they're going to go bad for our young heroes, they have the Golden Fleece in their hands by that point, which can pretty much reverse any damage they may take in battle.  Where's the drama in that?  I like this series' idea of mixing Greek Mythology with modern day fantasy adventure elements, but in order for it to be successful, there needs to be a sense that these characters are risking it all, even their lives, on this adventure.  I guess the fact that things never get too dangerous makes this a good adventure film for young children, who will probably find this stuff thrilling.  Older kids and teens, however, might get restless.

What saves this film, at least a little bit, is that it never takes itself all that seriously to begin with.  When the kids begin their adventure, they decide to board the Chariot of the Damned, which is in actuality a magical taxi cab. ("Chariot of the Damned?  It looks more like a New York taxi", one of the characters observes.  "What's the difference?", asks another.) I also admired the sequence that explains Kronos' backstory, which is told through CG animation done in the style of stained glass art.  Speaking of the CG, the work done on the monsters Percy and his friends encounters is uneven.  While some of the creatures (like the cyclops) look good, others like a mechanical fire-breathing bull that Percy fights early on, or when Kronos is finally revealed at the end, look kind of like end bosses from a video game.  When Percy was climbing up the massive limbs of Kornos to do battle with the demon, I wasn't thinking of the life and death struggle up on the screen, I was thinking how the whole battle was pretty much tailor made to be a level in a game tie in for the movie.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters has a few laughs, and a likable cast, but it's not enough to hide the fact that the whole quest that the story rests on is fairly mediocre.  Should there be a third entry, I hope it manages to raise the stakes, while keeping the goofy charm of the characters that this film has.  Even though I wasn't completely taken in by the story, I had a feeling the whole time I was watching it that if I was 10 years old, I probably would have loved this.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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