PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS (Thor Freudenthal). 100 minutes. Now playing. For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NNN
The Harry Potter films suggested Chris Columbus makes a better producer than a director the Percy Jackson movies prove it.
A cheaper, looser and sillier go-round for Logan Lerman’s young demigod, Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters is a far more entertaining than the stilted theatrics of The Lightning Thief. Director Thor Freudenthal is clearly in a more playful mood than Columbus was, which helps balance out the rather uninspired concept.
It’s enjoyable if insubstantial, as Percy and his friends Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) set off to find the Golden Fleece to restore the barrier that protects their wilderness sanctuary from old enemy Luke (Jake Abel), who’s out to go all Wrath Of The Titans on his fellow demigods even if it means ending the world as we know it.
Mostly, though, it’s an excuse to meet some new characters, including type-A demigod Clarice (Leven Rambin) and Percy’s cyclops half-brother Tyson (Antiviral’s Douglas Smith, channelling 90s Brendan Fraser), and to encounter various mythological characters as their quest takes them into the Bermuda Triangle.
Speaking of which, Stanley Tucci is an inspired choice for Dionysus, Anthony Head replaces Pierce Brosnan as the centaur Chiron, and Nathan Fillion’s Shatneriffic cameo as Hermes is worth the price of a ticket on its own.
