Ebert Did It Better: Gasbag Reviews

Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters – 2013

Director Thor Freudenthal
Starring Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Douglas Smith, Leven Rambin, Jake Abel, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion
Screenplay Marc Guggenheim based on the book by Rick Riordan

Logan Lerman was around 15 when he made the first Percy Jackson movie.  By the time he made this one, he was a fully developed 20-year-old and had considerably less youthful innocence.  His performance in The Three Musketeers was fun, but his performance in The Perks of Being A Wallflower was a giant leap forward.  To find him back in the saddle as a “half-blood” is nice for consistency’s sake, but it makes little sense as a career move.

Even so, he makes a good game of his second effort.  The story is a nice, if bland approximation of the first part.  Another quest, only this time without the element of surprise in finding out he is the son of Poseidon, and the awakening to a new side of life he had hitherto been unaware.  Instead of treading that ground again, we give our hero a struggle with his concept of destiny, along with a new half-brother (Smith).  That his brother is a cyclops gives us the challenge of not judging a book by the cover.

Daddario reprises her role as Annabeth, daughter of Athena and, it seems, the object of many a crush.  It is a problem that they address with courteous bumbling by every character with x y chromosomes.  Daddario was last seen in Texas Chainsaw, seems even more physically mature than Lerman and it takes the film even further away from the first Harry Potter book range and closer to the last Harry Potter book area.  And this is only the second story.

Early on, we find Luke (Abel), the bad guy from the first movie, is back and ready for more mayhem.  This immediately reminds the viewer that no matter what happens to Like in this movie, he’s likely to survive it.  This means its unlikely anyone will be permanently maimed in the course of events.  Well, no one who hasn’t been rendered on computer will be hurt, at least.

The computer renderings aren’t too bad.  There is a nice looking Hippocampus, a nicely drawn Charybdis that we get to see from the inside out and a Manticore that is hard to keep down.  Kronos is a little silly looking, and one has to doubt 3D would have made it any better.

The kids enjoyed the film.  It stopped them from whatever they were doing and they didn’t wander off.   Nothing in the film stands out for anyone past 12…or perhaps those who are extreme Greek Myth fans.  There’s 3 more of these books, if you don’t count the offshoots.  By the time it’s finished, the main characters could be parents of their own demigods.

(*** out 0f *****)