Review: Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters

I'm starting this review off with a very important note that you should all keep in mind while reading this review, I'm extremely biased. Now that we got that little piece of information out of the way, let's get on with the review...

I FUCKING LOVE PERCY JACKSON!!!! I started reading the books around the time the first one was coming into theatres although I didn't have it done when it was in theatres so I skipped it, or at least until it was on DVD. When I did finally watch it I did enjoy the movie very much, despite the fact that they changed so much for the movie, and I don't mean subtle little differences that Harry Potter fans whine about "That's not how Harry met so and so" and "This part was before that part" in the first one they changed the villain altogether!! The next paragraph is going to contain spoilers from the first movie and the first book so if you don't want to read them skip it.

In the first book the fact that Luke was setting up Percy to be killed was a big cliffhanger at the end of the book when he tries to kill him with a scorpion in the battle arena it is only then revealed that Luke had been using Ares (God of war who Percy actually battles once he leaves the underworld. Now I know it's easy to make Hades the villain since general movie going crowds already know Hades is bad from everything else so they don't have to know anything more about the villain. But my favourite parts of the first book is when Percy goes to talk to Hades and Hades says that he doesn't want the Olympians to fight that he was sent down here as punishment and he would be upset if war broke out among his siblings. It makes you feel BAD for Hades, a feeling that most Greek mythology books does not, so rather than having a big reveal at the end of movie 1, which could possible increase interest in movie 2 since the audience would feel betrayed by Luke just as Percy and friends were since we would know him as a good guy instead of seeing him in about 10 minutes of screen time, half of which he is complaining about his dad so we don't actually end up liking him before we are told he's bad.

Okay spoilers done, but as I am, I'm able to separate books from movies. I was able to enjoy both, do I think the movie could have been better? Of course. But that didn't change the fact it was still a really good film. The 2nd movie did a complete 180 and was much more faithful to the book only changing a handful of things, which really weren't a big deal to me anyways.

In the spoiler section I talked about how the first film failed to cause excitement for future movies, the sea of monsters was an interesting stand alone story that you don't really need any background on to enjoy. All the while planting the seeds to show what's in store for future and more promising arcs.

Although Percy and the gang will undoubtedly be written off, unfairly might I add, as tween and teen centric dumb fun, but really in a summer that has been bogged down by dark and bad films. Percy breathes a breath of fresh air into movie theatres. Logan Lerman continues to lead the cast by being a believable Percy with off the chart combat skills but an equal amount of uncertainty about himself in his future. The production values are much better than the first with a better special effects to boot, although that's to be expected since they spend most of the first film in the United States whereas number 2 is heavily placed in the Sea of Monsters. Also I was surprised by the 3D... I was expecting no real 3D just put in 3D to have extra money to put towards the film, but it was actually kinda worth it and the only reason I say "kinda" is because I really don't think any 3D is worth the 3$ surcharge.

I give Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters 4 out of 5 demigods.