Blu-ray Review: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews

There’s an interesting bit about the Percy Jackson franchise that is intriguing on any number of levels for a Young Adult franchise. It wants to be about a child trying to find a connection, any connection, with his father while he’s in that in-between process of going from child to man. It’s an interesting undercurrent to the franchise, which blends Greek mythology into an action franchise that manages to have found an audience internationally.

Percy (Logan Lerman) is back at Camp Half Blood with his best friends (Brandon T Jackson, Alexandra Daddario) and soon they’re on another Greek mythology based quest: to find the golden fleece. The tree that protects Camp Half Blood is dying and they need the fleece to heal it. Thus the trio is sent on a quest to retrieve it, as the fleece itself is critical to the plans of Luke (Jake Abel) who wants to bring Kronos back to life and eliminate the Greek gods.

All the while Percy wants to find a connection with his father, Poseidon (God of Water), which his half brother Tyson (Douglas Smith) has.

This subplot, of Percy trying to find a way to connect with his father in a way his half brother has, makes for a nice character building perspective for what’s a fairly perfunctory fantasy action film. We get modern updates on prominent Greek mythos, of course, and Nathan Fillon makes for a great cameo as Hermes (God of Messengers, owner of a UPS store), but on the whole this is a fairly pedestrian action sequel that builds on the first film (The Lightning Thief) and isn’t afraid to rebalance the cinematic equation.

It’s an acceptable sequel on the whole without this component to it. It’s this added component to Percy Jackson that makes this film go from acceptable to intriguing.

Percy Jackson as a character is fairly innocuous, like any leading man, but this little subplot gives him a different depth than you’d usually get in a YA franchise.

The extras are mostly of the Electronic Press Kit variety (deleted scenes, et al.). Though it does include a motion comic book, if you’re in to that sort of thing.

20th Century Fox presents Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters . Directed by Thor Freudenthal. Written by Marc Guggenheim based off “The Sea of Monsters” by Rick Riordan. Starring Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Douglas Smith, Leven Rambin, Jake Abel, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion, Shohreh Aghdashloo. Running time: 106 minutes. Rated PG. Released: December 17, 2013.