2010’s “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” aimed to become the next “Harry Potter”: an adaptation of a popular book series about a heroic boy-figure and his best friends fighting to save their world and ours. Even though it only grossed $89 million in the US, a $227 million worldwide total was good enough for Fox to order this sequel.
“Sea of Monsters” begins with a flashback that changes the storyline of the first film. Younger versions of Percy and his best friends Annabeth and Grover, and another girl named Thalia – who are all half-blood descendants of the gods, are attacked by Cyclopses. Thalia sacrifices herself to protect them and their home in the woods from future invaders, as Zeus turns her into a tree. This scene actually gets the film off to a decent start.
We flash-forward seven years to present day. Percy (Logan Lerman from “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) is beginning to doubt his god-like powers, even though he is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. One day a giant mechanical bull storms into Camp Half-Blood (it looks even less realistic than a real mechanical bull). The protective barrier no longer works because the tree has been poisoned. So Percy, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) have to find the magical Golden Fleece from the Sea of Monsters – aka The Bermuda Triangle. The fleece can bring anything it touches back to life (except, unfortunately, this movie).
This set-up also includes another girl who thinks she’s better than Percy, a group of bad guys (led by a character named Luke who I don’t even remember from the first film – it’s been that long), and a one-eyed cyclops named Tyson who has a special connection to Percy.
“Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” is, unintentionally, one of the funniest films of the year. Many of the lines are so corny, they’re hilarious, including a few from Stanley Tucci and Nathan Fillion that actually make fun of the film, other characters and the ridiculous plot. Lerman and the other young actors are also forced to throw around boatloads of mythology references, as if to make the plot sound believable.
There are a few surprises in “Sea of Monsters”. One is that UPS isn’t really UPS afterall (I’m not sure how the company feels about that) and the other is just how cheesy and dated the special effects look. They make “PJ2” feel like it was made in 2003.
Chris Columbus (who directed the first “Percy”) get a producer credit on this one, handing the directing reigns over to Thor Freudenthal (“Diary of a Wimpy Kid” – I’m sure he’s proud of that on his resume.) For “Sea of Monsters” he has created a film that will likely please its one and only target audience: readers who loved the books and enjoyed the first film. But for anyone else, this is too silly, sappy and simple to be taken seriously.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” gets a D.
There are three more books in the series, but will there be three more movies? Probably not, since these “kids” are already getting too old for their characters (though “Harry Potter” pulled it off). But I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a “PJ3”. They just better not wait another three and a half years.