The film told of a young boy named Percy Jackson, the demi-god son of Poseidon, who is accused of stealing Zeus's master lightning bolt. He then sets out to Camp Half-Blood, where he meets up with other demi-gods of the world he's entered, but now enters a fork in the road between putting balance back into the world and bringing back his mother who was killed. For a film that establishes Greek Mythology into its own way, which I think is an interesting idea, it really didn't strike that much to me. It wasn't the worst of this trend of Potter-clones, but it still wasn't a good movie. The best aspect that I got from this film were the actors, especially Logan Lerman who has really evolved more as the years have gone by.
It's then it got it's sequel, "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters." How was it? Pretty boring actually.
This time around, the long dead half-blood-now-tree that keeps the strong barrier around Camp Half-Blood, Thalia, is starting to die and soon will leave everyone defenseless. It's then Percy learns of the Golden Fleece, which can heal anything it's put over and even more. Despite not being picked for the quest to find it, Percy and his friends, Grover and Annabeth, along with Percy's cyclops half-brother, Tyson, set out to find the Fleece. The troubles that lie ahead for them is that Luke, the demi-god son of Hermes, is still alive and is after the Fleece too, so he can bring back Kronos. While this idea does seem like it should be an easy hour and thirty minute film, the manage to stretch it out to almost two hours, and it really gets unpleasant.
The actors that do return, like Stanley Tucci, Jake Abel, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, and Logan Lerman pretty much give the same performance from the first film, but then there are new characters who felt unneeded or just unlikable. Douglas Smith plays Percy's half-brother, Tyson, and while I do think he's trying his best here, he didn't feel all that needed, except for the encounter with Polyphemus. Aside from that, there really wasn't much needed from him, even after he saves Percy's life. Though the character that became hard to watch was Levin Rambin as Clarisse La Rue. The minute she was on screen and gave that snarky insult, I knew I was going to hate this character. If I went into more one why I didn't like her, we'd be here all day.
The action scenes, while not great were watchable. Though it does get annoying when characters with swords only use the hilt, up until they're fighting a big special effect. Which brings me to the special effects, which looked awful, especially when you see Kronos, who looks like that ghost rock monster from "Super Mario Galaxy." That, and for a film that was almost two hours long, that final battle felt rushed, which really pissed me off, since I wanted to see what they could have REALLY done with that.
Overall, "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" was just a waste of time. I haven't read the books, and after these films, I probably won't have much interest in them. While it has its moments, it doesn't save the film enough.
Rating: 4/10
I agree that this film is bad, but it's actually not a reason to not have any interest in the books. The reason? The Percy Jackson movies BARELY follow the books! It almost gets to the point where the books are COMEPLETLY different stories. If you ever did read the books, you'd probably like them more than these movies. The story is better and keeps you more engaged, the characters are more lovable (you even end up actually CARING about Clarrise in the books), and the villains are actually better developed and they don't rush to the final fight like they did in the film, as you pointed out.
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, just thought I would let you know.