The best thing, worst thing, and main thing about the latest Percy Jackson flick “Sea of Monsters” in about the time it takes to watch the trailer.
REVIEW TEXT
His weapon is a pen and his dads is a fork. Who knew household utensils were the key to saving the world?.
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“Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters” is the sequel to 2010’s Lightning Thief, and finds Percy and the whole demigod crew taking on a new challenge involving keeping their training ground protected and saving the universe from another big bad ancient deity. The movie is based on the novel of the same name and according to my boys (who read more books in a week than I have in the past decade) it sticks pretty close.
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Strangely enough, I’m pretty sure I liked this movie. I say that because I can’t really put my finger on it other than it was good, wholesome fun and didn’t have too much in it that gave me reason to lay into it, I didn’t love it by any stretch of the imagination but given the choice I might actually sit down with my boys and watch it again when it’s out on video. Some of the things I found to like include the heart, the message about self sacrifice, and even the bit of humor that was sprinkled in. Logan Lerman, who proved he could really act in last year’s “Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a competent leading man and the cast around him seems to perform well enough not to distract me from the story unfolding. But I think my best thing, and reason I enjoyed the movie overall, is the creative creature design and execution. Right from the first baddie, which gives the phrase mechanical bull a whole new meaning, the movies action and fight scenes seemed to be firing on all cylinders for me. Even the final battle, which many might have found over the top, just worked for me. But not everything did.
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For one thing, the plot seems a bit disjointed and often predictable, but there were enough pretty sights and rollicking action moments that for whatever reason it just didn’t quite matter for me. What did matter, and is therefore my worst thing, is that I often got the feeling that I was missing information from the first movie to help me understand some of these characters or parts of the story. And I even saw the first movie! I imagine the effect would be even worse if you hadn’t.
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Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters is a second rate, Harry Potter wannabe, movie that is predictable and often confusing if you don’t remember information from the first. But because of the fun action and quick pace I ended up liking it more than I probably should’ve. It likely deserves worth but for my experience I’ll go ahead and say B-.
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