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Greek mythology is a lot of fun what
with all these gods, heroes and monsters bumping into each other.
Seeing how
well these stories played over the past 3,000 years it would make sense that
they would make for some entertaining movies here in the 21st Century.
The Percy
Jackson series of novels mines these ancient sagas for the Teen Beat set as it
follows the exploits of a young demigod (half god/half human) in the modern
world, who learns of his heredity at the same time he learns all the ancient
myths are indeed true.
The first
Percy Jackson movie (burdened with the cumbersome title “Percy Jackson &
the Olympians: The Lightning Thief”) was a fun little romp given the Harry
Potter treatment by director Chris Columbus.
The second
movie in the series, with the much leaner title “Percy Jackson: Sea of
Monsters,” is a tad less fun than the first movie, but still makes for
above-average family fare.
Percy
Jackson is still played admirably by Logan Lerman and “Sea of Monsters” opens
where we last left Percy, kicking it at Camp Half-Blood, a sort of a
summer-camp-meets-military-academy for young demigods.
Pierce Brosnan
decided he had better things to do than be digitally attached to a horse’s
body, so the role of Percy’s mentor, Chiron the centaur, has gone to Anthony
Head.
But Percy
still has his satyr protector, Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), and best gal pal
Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) along from the first movie. He also leans he has
a cyclops for a half-brother named Tyson (Douglas Smith). And you thought your
family reunions were awkward.
From what I
can gather, the formula for these movies seems to be that Percy is presented
with a grand quest, which you think the movie is going to be all about; but
instead we spend most of our time on a side quest and then the main quest gets
conveniently resolved along the way.
This time
Percy learns he is the subject of a prophesy that says he will either save or
destroy Olympus; a prophesy that gets some validation after the “destroy” part
has been set in motion by disgruntled demigod Luke (Jake Abel).
But before
any of that can be dealt with, Percy and his friends set off on a convoluted
voyage to the Bermuda Triangle to retrieve the fabled Golden Fleece so they can
heal a tree that protects the camp.
Fortunately,
director Thor Freudenthal doesn’t let the movie get bogged down too much in the
details as the film does well as our heroes bounce from once fantastical
encounter to the next.
What I like
about this series is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously, as proven by a
couple of inspired supporting role casting decisions. Nathan Fillion amps up
the charm as Hermes, as he winks and nods his way through his portrayal of the
messenger of the gods as a global shipping magnate.
Then we have
Stanley Tucci, who plays Dionysus, the god of wine turned cynically glib camp
overseer. I recently said that Hollywood should put Tucci in every movie and
apparently they listened, because the dude has been busy lately. He’s
consistently great and even makes the horrible movies he pops up in that much
more tolerable.
“Sea of
Monsters” knows exactly what kind of movie it is and when it was over I left
fully willing to sit through another Percy Jackson movie. I feel that is high
praise for a movie of this ilk.
“Percy
Jackson: Sea of Monsters” is rated PG for fantasy action violence, some scary
images and mild language.
