Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters: Movie Review

When "Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief" came out more than three years ago, we were all praises. We loved its action, we loved its humor and we loved its characters. The sequel is finally here and to be honest, this second effort seems to be too far off from where the original threaded. Gone is the shimmer we loved and replaced by a film that is hard to distinguish from the numerous films piling up its niche. Honestly, this is a generic experience at best and it makes us wonder if it just took them too long to create a sequel to make this compelling even for its hardcore fans.

Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) embarks on a journey to save Camp Half-Blood, home and training ground of demigods. Camp Half-Blood is currently protected by a tree from which grew upon the body of Thalia Grace (Paloma Kwiatkowski). Thalia sacrificed her life for three other half-bloods to survive and her father Zeus created the tree to bring life to his dead daughter and to protect the inhabitants of the camp from outside threats. Upon returning to the camp, Percy along with the other teen demigods find the camp's protective barriers poisoned leaving them all vulnerable against any attacks from their enemies. The only way to save the camp is to retrieve the Golden Fleece from a dangerous cyclops named Polyphemus. Together with Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), Brover (Btandon T. Jackson) and Tyson (Douglas Smith), a cyclops and Percy's half-brother, Percy sets sail on his most dangerous journey yet to retrieve the Golden Fleece in order to save the tree and save the camp.

In our opinion, "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" just took too damn long to create. Any headway it had and what ever interest we had three years ago is now gone and with this, sadly, the film also fails to make any changes to its formula that make this a compelling watch. If the formula they used before worked, it now doesn't and they did worse. We remember loving the character of Grover with his humor-filled charm. Sadly, the sequel completely forgets his character more or less. The story itself was so-so but straight-forward and the acting was just okay. The CGI-filled scenes will work its charm with the kids but adults may not buy the material so much. The final scene in particular (against Chronos) was a huge bummer. If the biggest fight in your film ends quick and doesn't have that epic feel then you know you are failing badly. "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" seems to be a mediocre effort to cash in on a franchise that scored three years ago. That's the problem, that was a long time ago and whatever worked before sure didn't work now.

Rating: 2 and a half reels





Why you should watch it:
- a generic film but one that kid's will definitely enjoy

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the sequel lost the original's luster