Starring: Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Douglas Smith
When protecting a group of fellow half-bloods (people who are the offspring of humans and gods), Thalia (Paloma Kwaiatkowski), daughter of Zeus is mortally wounded by a strange beast. As she died, Zeus used his powers to absorb her into a tree; her energy creating an invisible sheild around half-blood settlement, Camp Half-blood. Seven years later, the shield is damaged by a mysterious poison arrow hitting the tree and Percy Jackson (Lerman), half-blood son of Perseus is sent to solve the mystery with his friend Annabeth (Daddario) the skilled but arrogant Clarisse (Leven Rambin) and Tyson (Smith) Percy's half-brother who, by virtue of being half-god (through Poseidon) and half-nymph, is a cyclops
The sequel to Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (2010) (and a film adaptation of a series of books by Rick Riordan, Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters is partly inspired by the myth of Jason And The Argonaughts, but despite a promising premise, this film falls flat, moreso than the already fairly disappointing Lightning Thief. There are a couple of improvements, mostly that he film's use of ancient Greek mythology isn't entirely constrained by setting to the US, (although The Bermuda Triangle still isn't very exotic by these standards) and the film's characters are largely unlikeable. Percy Jackson seems decent enough, but as heroes go, he's pretty bland and Logan Lerman has enough talent to pull off more complex roles (such as in last year's The Perks Of Being A Wallflower) and Alexandr Daddario's subplot about her dislike of Tyson the cyclops, whilst given some reasoning towards the end, comes across as horrifically nasty, judging by appearance and even at one point coercing him to sue a spray to make him appear more normal (put this towards a context of real-life prejudice's and the subtext becomes really disturbing). Clarisse is the only really agreeable character, even if its just because her snarky asides match my own gripes with the story.
Visually, the film fares a little better. Tis time around, we're given a new adversary in Kronos; seemingly equal-parts Sauron from Lord Of The Rings, Satan (with elements of the portrayal of Chernabog in Fantasia (1940)) and the MCP from TRON (1982). His intriguing form of motion and the scenes detailing his backstory are the film's definite highlight. The film was not originally made for 3D but this was adjusted in post-production and it shows. The 3D is all but unnecessary and the already dark and murky cinematography is rendered frustratingly muddied all the more by the significant light-loss with Reflex 3D glasses. At the film's end (after we've stumbled through a brief re-enactment to the finale of Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)) seems to imply there's more of this to come. The series does show potential at a conceptual level, but there needs to be a lot more effort put in if there are to be later instalments.
Next time, Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses and teams up with his old secret service buddies (and an insane Anthony Hopkins) to foil a bomb plot in RED 2.
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