My children are great admirers (and readers) of the Percy Jackson series. They were disappointed with the first film, Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief…
My children are great admirers (and readers) of the Percy Jackson series. As such they are particularly astute reviewers of the films as they know the books inside and out. All three of them (16,14 and 10) were disappointed with the first film, Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief as they felt it didn’t stick to the books, and left important parts of the book out making the translation (in their opinion) of the later books into film more difficult.
This film sees Percy and crew on a ‘quest’ to save their home camp from destruction, by sailing the sea of monsters in search of Jason’s Golden Fleece. They are attacked by Cyclops, a Manticore, a large bronze mechanical bull – and meet the craziest cab drivers ever on their journey.
This time Chris Columbus has taken a back seat after directing the first film, the lengthily-titled Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Instead, he is producing them, with Thor Freudenthal of Diary of a Wimpy Kid fame taking the helm instead. And as far as my children are concerned, the second film was better than the first. It re-introducted the parts that needed to be in there (to continue the series). It is still a bit of a problem that the Percy Jackson series actually starts when Percy is just 12, and in the first film he is 16. We assume this is done to grab a teenage audience, but starting the series young worked with Harry Potter – it is a pity they didn’t stay with that for this series.
That said, the main characters of Percy, Annabeth, Grover and Tyson are all well played and the story spins along nicely. We just would have liked to see more of the ‘Monsters’ in the title (we only get to see the inside of one of them in the film). The CGI effects where well used – especially the hippocampi or sea horses (of the large rideable variety). We loved Stanley Tucci as Dionysus – he seemed to have a lot of fun playing the character.
The ending confused us all (as it wasn’t in the book) but we forgave them that as it was just a fun ride getting there.
3 out of 5 from this Percy Jackson-mad family.
By Anya Brighouse
25 September 2013
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