Review – Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Sea of Monsters is the follow-up instalment in the Percy Jackson franchise – a Young Adult series about a boy who discovers he has a grand destiny to fulfil as the half-human son of Poseidon. Logan Lerman returns to his role as the mild-mannered teen Percy Jackson, now more accustomed to his place in a world that is a quixotic pastiche of contemporary America and mythological Greece. But when a magical tree is poisoned, one which protects the mythological folk of Camp Half-Blood, he is forced to seek out the Golden Fleece for its famed healing properties.

Sea of Monsters is a light, fun movie about a bunch of teens on an epic adventure. The drama is painted in thick lines, and the characters have relatively limited motivations, but the plot keeps things moving along quickly enough to keep you involved. It’s on this merit that the film gets a passing grade: you won’t be wowed by the humour, the acting, or the action, but none of it’s hilariously awful, either. It’s just what it is: an inoffensive teen adventure, stuffed to the gills with unimaginative references to Hesiod and Homer. It’s exactly the sort of film you’d get when you bring a lot of competent people on board who want to do nothing but film their scenes, cut their checks, and get on with their lives. Nathan Fillion was probably the best example of this – he turns up in cameo to show off his calves, eat the scenery, make a Firefly joke, and then disappear. It’s a performance that’s no less wooden, and no more entertaining, than that of the rest of the cast.

I don’t doubt this film will do well with the school holiday crowds, probably well enough that they’ll make another, and it’s entertaining enough the parents and babysitters won’t mind it either.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KvTKyFzm80&w=400]