Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)

This film Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters comes just at the right time of the year for tween entertainment. Summer is winding down, school is about to resume and the demi-gods have an adventure worthy of Ulysses. I thought the opening story of Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) initially arriving at camp and how the shield came to be was creative and brought a level of energy to start things off, however I didn't particularly favor the warrior games, which were more like a round of Wipe Out rather than a show of strength from uber gifted halflings. The updating of the stories of Greek mythology is a great way to get this generation of youngsters invested in the tales. The ability through technology to visually depict the mythological creatures makes it all so much more appealing especially creatures like the hippocampus as seen in the trailer, this has to be the best looking seahorse I have ever laid eyes on. There were other creations throughout the film that were first rate special effects, but I wasn't impressed with Kronos, and don't even get me started on the animated history of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades rebelling against their titan father. I'll just sum it up in a word, cheesy. There was some creative license taken with modernizing the Stygian witches and Hermes (Nathan Fillion) all of whom fit right in to the new age, but alas the Cyclops just never seems to evolve. This second installment of the franchise comes with some new talent like Stanley Tucci (Mr. D) who was almost unrecognizable with the facial hair and the hair, Anthony Head (Chiron) and Leven Rambin (Clarisse) whose character brought a healthy dose of in your face competition to Percy (Logan Lerman). Most noticeably missing were those deities seen in the original film that I thought might make at the very least a cameo, the Olympian Gods. I went to see this film really wanting to like it, since I have been a fan of Greek mythology for most of my entire reading life, but I came away a bit indifferent. I laughed, was never too shocked at anything and also yawned. I do hope that viewers don't just take the film at face value and actually go read up on these amazing stories that these tween adventures were inspired by. I give this film an amber light.