You can understand when a film does really well, gets rave reviews and has a storyline that can be extended that the film makers would consider a sequel, which one hopes will be better than the first. What is of increasing frustration to a reviewer is seeing films which were pretty ropey in the first instance getting a sequel just because the box office numbers look good. There used to be a really good avenue for this kind of film – straight to video, but these days they get a big cinematic release which inevitably crowds out really great smaller films which don’t have a chance of breaking through if they are up against big budget 3D films, even if they are a bit rubbish.

 

Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is the only son of one of the three main Greek gods, Poseidon. He is a “half-blood”, in other words his mother was a mortal. He, naturally, has power over all things water based. The plot is driven by two events – firstly  the discovery he has a half-brother, a cyclops called Tyson, and the summer camp style idyll where all the half-bloods live, is attacked and the protective spells around it are broken. To get the barrier back up Percy and his chums have to travel to the Sea of Monsters, to retrieve the Golden Fleece – which has the power to restore anything to life and full health.

 

Percy Jackson:The Sea of Monsters, falls into the category of a sequel to a film which was not particularly good in the first place. The sequel itself is not particularly good either – it’s not bad, but reasonable. It is very much like an extended episode of a TV show, not least because it is based on a series of books. The problem is the plot and characters would better suit a TV series, as you don’t really have much time to invest any emotion in them, and everyone is slightly bland, stereotyped and you never believe any of them are really going to die. It’s a good one for the summer holidays, if you have nothing better to do.

 

6/10

Andrew Shepherd