This just in. The director of “Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters” (Trailer) is named Thor Freudenthal. What a fantastic name. He has done a few kids movies before (“Hotel For Dogs,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid“), but that is it. Hopefully directing this movie is a sign of changes for this man. With a name like that, I want him involved in most action movies from now on.

Back to the movie, I am pretty excited for this sequel. I actually enjoyed “Percy Jackson, The Lightning Thief.” As an undergraduate, one of my majors was Ancient History, which of course gave me a love of mythology as well.

No, I don’t hate that these films change the Greek Mythology meaning and stories around. Because this is just another case of a movie not being identical to the source material. If I am fine with what happened in “Iron Man 3,” I will be fine with whatever they can throw at me here.

Besides, these mythologies are basically dead. I love it when anything can attempt to spice them up a bit. This one is promising to add a whole sea of monsters! Hooray!

Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is no longer a big deal in the demigod camp after the first film, as teenagers are fickle. Who cares if he just saved Olympus/the world. What has he done for them lately? His friends, Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and Grover the Satyr (Brandon T. Jackson) believe in him, but everyone is else is obsessed with Clarisse (Leven Rambin), daughter of Ares. She wins all the events and challenges at camp. 

Don’t remember her from the first movie? Well, presumably she was there somewhere. Maybe she just sick the two or so days that Percy visited in the first film, since at that point, Annabeth was the best warrior in the camp. Maybe they can’t handle two great female fighters at the same time.

Well, it turns out the protective barrier around their camp is falling, and it is all thanks to Luke (Jake Abel), son of Hermes, villain from the first film. Of course! He wants to do the unthinkable, and resurrect Chronos, the Titan, so that he can kill all the gods and ruin the world.

Classic villain strategy.

But that is not as important. They just want to restore the barrier to their camp, and to do that they have to find the Golden Fleece! Anything else is just gravy.

Oh, Percy also has a new half-brother Tyson (Douglas Smith), a young cyclops. His dad Poseidon just gets lonely sometimes, I suppose. Poseidon, Zeus, and Hades do not make any actual appearances this movie, but we do get Hermes (Nathan Fillion, technically a recast), and Dionysus (Stanley Tucci), who for some reason didn’t get to drink wine. Chiron is also back in this movie as the camp mentor, but he is played by Anthony Head (of Buffy fame), and not Pierce Brosnan. Boo recasts.

I would say that overall, “Sea of Monsters” is not as good as “The Lightning Thief.” But one major improvement was getting rid of the “& The Olympians” part out of the title. That title was long enough to be comical.

Here is one of my biggest issues. Luke as a villain doesn’t make a lot of sense in this movie. To resurrect Chronos, he also needs the Golden Fleece. Unless he didn’t think he could get it himself with his band of mighty demigod soldiers, it is silly to break the camp barrier, causing them to go after the fleece as well. Instead, he could have not done that, and succeeded in his plan as no one even knew he was alive.

Instead we have a movie where there is a ton of buildup for the great and powerful Chronos, who then gets easily “defeated” in a matter of minutes. It happens in a lot of fantasy films. I am surprised more people don’t get angry when they are teased about the destroyer of the world coming, but when he finally does, its a whimper. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is another recent example of that.

It does have a lot of cool effects still. Caribdis was gorgeous and they had a manticore! However, the manticore went out in a single hit. Caribdis ended up being comparable to the whale from “Pinocchio.” I didn’t feel scared for any character, because the solution was always immediate or obvious. Plus, you’d think there would be more monsters in the sea of monsters. At least more than one. Maybe.

They did have some good attention to detail for the minor mythologies though. I loved the gas in the Oracle scene. There are many references to “The Odyssey.” Just showing Caribdis without bringing up Scylla is unique. Tyson the cyclops seemed like a horrible addition early on, due to the awkwardness of his CGI’d eye, but I got over it, and he became a funny/sweet character.

Overall on its own, it is a decent family movie. Minor continuity issues arose, but they can be ignored easily by most movie goers. The ending was cliffhanger-ish, which generally feels tacky when used in movies.

I mean, what if we started allowing cliffhangers in everything? Like songs, movie reviews, and

3/5