PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS

 

Well, I've been on a bit of a movie thing lately and it's time to review another one.  Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters is already 5 years old and I'm just getting around to it.  Typical.  But I have to say I'm DISAPPOINTED, not to say DISTURBED, by what I saw in this story.

CLIFFIE'S NOTES ON THIS UPDATED  RENDERING OF SOME OF THE GREEK MYTHS:

>> The acting is OK. 

>> The visuals are pretty cool, if wildly inaccurate.  Check out the gif above which shows you what some dry-lander thought Charybdis looks like, for instance.  I mean, I love it, but come on now!!!

>> I found the pacing pretty decent.  A little slow at times, but overall pretty decent.

>> The plotline is almost exactly the same as the one in the first Percy Jackson story.  Percy, who now knows who his father is, goes on a quest to yattatta yattatta yattatta and struggles manfully with his friends to blah blah blah, and eventually succeeds in achieving what have you, making friends and doing good along the way.

>> The logical gap here is exactly the same as in the first movie, too:  how it is that the world is littered with these relics of Greek mythology -- gods, chimeras, nymphs, Harpies, oracles and whatnot -- but somehow they only apply to a secret society of people who are directly related to the stuff of those myths?  What about everyone else?  What are they here for, huh??? 

>>  They do imply at least that the ocean gods are really, really important to the fate of the world.  But they also make clear that only a few people will ever be aware of that fact because only they are privy to the secret reality that the Greek myths are alive in a sort of hidden room off the servants' pantry on the back stairs of the everyday world.  To me -- your North American Conspiracy Zone leader bringing the good news of the coming flood to EVERYONE UP ON DRY LAND -- I have to say this idea is PRETTY OFFENSIVE.  TRY and hide the ocean if you can.  I DARE YOU.

>> This movie is also, in a word, MONKEYCENTRIC.  That's obviously going to be my first and last problem with any movie like this one.  This story, supposedly about the Sea of Monsters, is really about Percy's need to prove to his old nemesis Clarice, from the first movie, The Lightning Thief, that's he's not a weenie.  THAT IS NOT A FISH MOTIVATION, LADIES.  And this kid is supposed to be one of the sons of Poseidon, for crap sakes.  He's no more a leader among fish than Natalie Wood was, with her lifelong terror of water and eventual humiliating death in the ocean that, I regret to inform, did NOT lead to a new and more glorious existence beneath the waves.  But I digress.

>> The loud and clear message is that even though Percy is the son of Poseidon, he's also flat-out TERRIFIED of sea creatures and uses HUMAN weapons to defeat them instead of simply ANNOUNCING HIMSELF TO THEM AS BEING THEIR NEW BEST FRIEND, AND TEAMING UP WITH THEM FROM THAT POINT ON.  He claims to have all these special abilities related to the water, right?  BUT HE'S SCARED OF A FEW SEA MONSTERS.  Give me a break.

>> And this brings me to another core problem with this movie.  Percy is the son of Poseidon, and they make a big deal out of the fact that he's the ONLY extant child of one of the three really, really major Greek gods.  Except his long-lost brother shows up, and somehow that doesn't change Percy's status at all, even though the brother has all kind of special powers that make Percy look pretty lame.  And let's not forget those sea monsters.  WHO DO YOU THINK MADE THEM, THE EASTER BUNNY?  They are also Poseidon's children.  Which makes them Percy's BROTHERS AND SISTERS.  But nobody in the movie ever sees this for what it is, even though they're insiders supposedly blessed with the straight poop on how it all really works.

>> And what's the happy ending in this story?  Percy gets to go back and hide from the scary old ocean at the demigods' summer camp in the deep, dark woods.  Are you people completely out of your monkey minds???

All this movie is going to do is scare the horseapples out of those who are already afraid of the water, making it even HARDER for us to recruit them.  I really wish it had never been made.