Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

“Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters,” released in 2013, is the second in a planned trilogy based on the novel franchise by Rick Riordan.

Robert Roten said in his review, “The story concept is very similar to the Harry Potter films and the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series.” Like those stories, here is a youthful hero born with great power and great responsibility. You also have a magical world which is combined with the world we know and is kept secret from the non-magic people. Anthony Head from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” is in this film as Chiron the centaur.

Percy Jackson, reprised by Logan Lerman, saved everyone in the first film but he can’t get any respect from the other demigods at the training grounds. He is often made fun of by the daughter of Ares, Clarisse La Rue, played by Leven Rambin. His friends are a satyr, Gover Underwood (Brandon T Jackon), and the daughter of Athena, Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario).

In this sequel, Percy finds out he has a half-brother, previously unknown to him, a Cyclops named Tyson, played by Douglas Smith. Percy, Tyson, Clarisse, and Grover go on a quest for the golden fleece, located in the Bermuda Triangle. They go on a scary ride in a magical taxi which might remind you of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter. They also make a stop at a UPS headquarters run by Hermes, played by Nathan Fillion. There, they get information and magical material to help them on their journey. Roten noted, “Fillion has a funny show business joke here referring to a cancelled series that he starred in, “Firefly,” which later became the basis for the movie “Serenity.””

The golden fleece is needed to save a magical tree, but it is also being found by Hermes’ son, Luke Castellan, played by Jake Abel, whose evil plan is to release Kronos and destroy Olympus. Not just wanting to stop Luke from getting the Golden Fleece, the movie goes for the epic finale between Percy and Kronos, voiced by Robert Knepper. As you think, there are a lot of interesting special effects here.

There is plenty of action, the acting is good, and the story is good enough to watch. Roten noted, “As Logan Lerman aptly demonstrated in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” his acting ability is far greater than is required for this role.” It is not a bad film, but might be just like the first film. There was supposed to be a third film, but that was scrapped.

Still, I found myself enjoying this film just the same as the first one. I think I got this film from the library and my sister and I saw this. I remember we both enjoyed it and I think everyone should give it a watch on Disney+. If you don’t like it, I get it, but at least give it a chance and judge it based on your own opinion. I hear the show is a lot better and I might check it out one day.

Alright, we have reached the end of “Greek Mythology Month.” I hope everyone liked this and hopefully everyone will check out every film I reviewed, especially if their a Greek Myth fan, like myself. Stay tuned next month to see what I will review next.

Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief

When the Harry Potter film series was almost done, another novel adaptation was introduced, which I didn’t know about until a second cousin had told me about it when I visited him. In 2010 came “Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief,” the first adaptation in the children’s book series by Rick Riordan, which sees it protagonist finding out he’s actually half God, half human. With about five books in the series, and the possibility for a long-running franchise, can Percy Jackson live up to the standards that Harry Potter made? I believe it did. Lara Martin said in her review, “From the opening scenes of a 30-foot Greek God emerging from the sea in New York, to the nordic looking battle grounds of Camp Half Blood, to the fiery colour and terror of the Underworld, Percy Jackson sucks you in as the classic Greek myths are retold for the modern world.”

Percy, played by Logan Lerman, is an average kid living in New York City. He doesn’t try too hard at school, deals with dyslexia and ADHD and doesn’t have the best home life since his mother (Catherine Keener) remarried a bum (Joe Pantoliano). However, when he is on a field trip to the museum, his life is changed forever when Mrs. Dobbs, played by Maria Olsen, turns into Alecto and demands Percy to return a stolen lightning bolt. Before he knows it, a confused Percy is being sent to a secret camp for his own protection, where he finds out that his wheelchair-bound tutor Mr. Brunner (Pierce Brosnan) is actually a centaur and his crutches-using best friend Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) is a Satyr who were sent to protect him.

Percy finds out that he is actually the son of Sea God, Poseidon, played by Kevin McKidd, making him a very powerful demigod. Unfortunately, Poseidon’s brother Zeus, played by Sean Bean, thinks that Percy has stolen his lightning rod, which has the possibility to start a war between the Gods. To make the situation worse, the God of the Underworld, Hades, played by Steve Coogan, kidnaps Percy’s mother and demands the lightning bolt. The only problem. Percy doesn’t have the bold and doesn’t know where it is. Still, he decides to go on this risky journey to the Underworld so he can save his mother, before trying to convince Zues that he is telling the truth.

Despite the parts of the surprisingly violent Camp Half Blood, where Percy learns how to control his powers, drag on too long, his journey across the country along with Grover and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), the warrior daughter of Athena (Melina Kanakaredes), are enjoyable. Their journey takes them from the botanical garden of Medusa, played by Uma Thurman, to the pleasure-seeking casino in Las Vegas, and the glory of the Parthenon in Nashville as they race against the time to rescue Percy’s mother, while learning different Greek history lessons on the way. Martin said, “The brief detour to the Underworld is one of the movie's biggest highlights, with a campy Coogan draped in metallics and leather as Hades, while Rosario Dawson oozes sex appeal as the lustful and trapped Persephone. Big names like Brosnan, Bean and Thurman add plenty of gravitas to proceedings, while relative newcomer Logan Lerman shows he is definitely one to watch as he transforms Percy from bratty schoolkid to brave hero, shining in his battle sequences and displaying a knack for comedy.”

Yes, there are plot holes, and so many loose ends, including how no one even thinks about the destruction of the Empire State Building, Parthenon, and so on, but that aside, the film manages to make Greek mythology both fun and exciting and is sure to attract its key demographic. With Chris Columbus, the director of the first two Harry Potter movies, directing this one, we get exactly what we would expect. Beneath all of the explosions, violence, and awe-inspiring special effects, is a nice story about a boy wanting to save his mother and the importance of friends, which could give Harry Potter a run for his money.

As a person who never read the books, I found myself enjoying this film, being a huge Greek Myths fan. My sister got this from Netflix back when they had DVD rentals and we watched this one night. I believe we both liked this and if you have a Disney+ account, you should see this. Give it a chance, but if you don’t like it, I understand. Just judge it based on your own thoughts.

Next week, we will finish off “Greek Mythology Month” with the sequel to this film. Sorry for the last posting. I fell asleep after coming back from work.

Troy

Rob Gonsalves started his review by saying, “Like Gladiator four summers ago, Troy starts the warm-weather season off with a manly, retro, sword-clanging bang. But that’s where the similarity ends. Gladiator, which unaccountably won a Best Picture Oscar, was a numbing and derivative revenge fantasy recast for swords and sandals. Troy takes off from sturdier origins — Homer’s great war poem The Iliad, which seems constructed to show war in all its aspects, its exultant splendor and its terrible cruelty.” David Denby, in his review of classic literature Great Books, cites an Iliad passage describing a spear stabbing a soldier “beside the nipple of the right chest, and the bronze spearhead drove clean through the shoulder.” Homer’s treatment of violent is both near-adult and exhilarating in its attention to the physical.

Gonsalves noted, “Director Wolfgang Petersen is aboard Troy, and after a few hit-and-miss blockbusters (his last movie was the waterlogged The Perfect Storm), he has made his most robust yet complex film since Das Boot, the U-boat drama that launched him internationally.” There are so many grand-scale battle scenes in “Troy,” released in 2004, and Petersen films them easily yet with an emphasis on the insanity of the moment. We see individual one-on-one fights within the larger brawl, small fights where we can see that this man delights because of speed over strength, while that man wins because of sheer dumb luck. Other fights, like the one between the Trojan warrior hero Hector, played by Eric Bana, and a massive Greek enemy, are amazingly choreographed dances of rage and honor.

Bradd Pitt may take a few critical catapults and arrows just for having been cast as Achilles, the arrogant warrior and great hope of Greece, but he’s got the moves. Gonsalves noted, “Pitt has perfected a highly photogenic maneuver: he runs past an enemy, hops up with his heavy legs swinging, and jabs his opponent fatally above the shoulderblade — whap!” However, Pitt brings more to it. His Achilles is a great warrior who feels used by the greedy king Agamemnon, played by Brian Cox (having a great time) and has grown disapproving of the very forces that set him in motion towards glory in war – which means dislike of glory itself. (In Homer, Achilles rejects the heroic code, saying, “We are all held in a single honor, the brave with the weaklings.”) By contrast, Hector, as underplayed effectively by Eric Bana, is a strong warrior who would rather not fight – he’s seen enough fighting to appreciate any other sensible but honorable alternative.

This great war poem, hilariously, has a soap-opera energy: Hector’s brother Paris (Orlando Bloom) runs off with Helen (Diane Kruger), the wife of Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson). In the movie, Agamemnon uses his brother’s rage as a reason to start a war with Troy but really couldn’t care less about Menelaus’ pride. Gonsalves said, “The weak link of The Iliad turns out to be the weak link of Troy, especially since Orlando Bloom and Diane Kruger, twin pretty flowers, barely suggest the transgressive passion that incinerated a great city. Nevertheless, the story was always meant to focus on the men pitted against each other over such a trifling matter.” The fight between Achilles and Hector is amazingly realized, all the more hurtful because we can precisely read each mean’s emotions going into the fight (despite Achilles’ rage is silenced in the movie because he is now avenging his cousin, not his “friend”).

Gonsalves said, “If mesmerizing panoramas of mass carnage don’t pull you in, Troy has a major old warhorse in its ranks: Peter O’Toole, seldom seen onscreen lately, enters the movie humbly as King Priam, father of Hector and Paris, and commands the screen effortlessly.” When Priam meets Helen, O’Toole compliments her beauty, then delivers a single word, “Welcome,” and devotes those two syllables with an entire movie’s worth of meaning. You can hear the suggestion of Priam’s frustrations with his son, understanding of why Paris fell so hard for Helen, and acceptance of whatever this illegal love might bring to his nation. “He was born to end lives,” someone says of Achilles, and O’Toole was born to kick movies up another notch.

I remember when this film was coming out, I saw trailers for it online. However, since I was not old enough to see it, I had to wait some time before watching it. Even though my brother said he was going to take me, we never went. I think I was well into my adulthood when I saw the film as a rental from the library. As someone who is a Greek Myth fan, I think this film was enjoyable. Especially with Sean Bean playing Odysseus. See this movie if you haven’t because I give it a recommendation.

Next week, I will be looking at a novel adaptation in “Greek Mythology Month.” Sorry for the late posting, I took a nap.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Whether it is a film you have heard of because of being a fan of Ray Harryhausen, or you have made a place for it on your movie shelf, or you found out about it because of the highly loathed 2010 remake with Sam Worthington, the original “Clash of the Titans” is one of the most celebrated 1981 fantasy films of all time. Just like all films that are considered a classic, does it still hold up today?

We see Perseus (Harry Hamlin) living a poor life when he sees he is destined to be amongst the Gods, led by his father Zeus (Laurence Olivier). He is arranged to marry Princess Andromeda, the heir to the city of Joppa (Judi Bowker), who is always promised to the villain Calibos (Neil McCarthy – made ugly by Zeus because he killed every flying horses except Pegasus). Here, his journey begins, meeting up with witches, gorgons, and the Kraken (these are a few classic Harryhausen creations!), and helped by Pegasus, gentle poet Ammon (the late Burgess Meredith), and the mechanical owl Bubo, we follow Perseus to his final fight with Calibos and the accomplishment of his life mission.

Nick Blackshaw said in his review, “Clash of the Titans is and always will be a thoroughly entertaining film and has been cleaned up well for the Blu-Ray edition.” It is a classic for a generation of actors like Laurence Olivier, Ursula Andress, Burgess Meredith, Pat Roach, Claire Bloom, and Maggie Smith, and shows a great time in filmmaking (films like “Star Wars,” “Tron,” and “Alien” were innovative with the way films were made. Blackshaw said, “Clash of the Titans was the last hurrah for old-school film-making and was Ray Harryhausen’s final film prior to retirement). Of course, expectations and tastes in films have changed and whilst some of the plot of Clash of the Titans is purely a vehicle for Harryhausen’s wonderful stop-motion creations, it shows the lack of heart that a lot of the big summer blockbusters of today have.”

I believe I had first heard about this film and “Jason and the Argonauts” from James Rolfe. Being a huge Greek Myth fan since Middle School, I had to see this film. I can safely say that this film stands the test the time and holds up very well today. The stop-motion effects are just amazing that you will love it when you see them. The story is also one you can get into. Even though this film doesn’t follow the myth of Perseus completely and makes up some stuff along the way, that is not something to nitpick. Check it out and see how great of a film you have been missing out on.

Next week I will be looking at a film that my brother said he was going to take me to but I ended up watching it much later as a rental from the library in “Greek Mythology Month.”

Jason and the Argonauts

For this month, I thought of reviewing some films that are based on Greek Mythology, since I minored in that in college. Being a huge fan, I had to see certain films based on the famous myths, and I will start with the 1963 classic and one of my all-time favorite films, “Jason and the Argonauts.”

Dennis Schwartz started his review by saying, “Fun-loving classic Greek mythological adventure tale geared for the kiddies, that’s too bumpy to be a smooth ride but its tongue-in-cheek storytelling and its visually spectacular rendering of its mythological setting leave it many golden moments.” It mostly comes alive through the masterful special effects by Ray Harryhausen, the king of stop-motion animation. Schwartz credited, “Harryhausen’s superb special effects, perhaps his best ever, include the building of a fine replica of the mythical ship the Argo, a lifelike version of the titan metal god Talos, the fluttery screeching bat-winged battling Harpies that plague the blind prophet Phineas (Patrick Troughton), the ‘crashing rocks’ through which the hero’s ship must cross, a menacing seven-headed Hydra that the hero must fight and the centerpiece sword fight with the hero and an army of skeletons who emerge out of the teeth of Hydra.” Director Don Chaffey keeps a tight grasp on routing it through so many great action scenes with its dull hero as the focus. It’s based on the poem The Argonautica by Apollonious Rhodios and the screenplay is done by Beverly Cross and Jan Read.

On Mt. Olympus, the Greek god Zeus (Niall MacGinnis) and goddess Hera (Honor Blackman) see the killing of King Aeson of Thessaly by his determined and cruel half-brother Pelias (Douglas Wilmer), who then kills his victim’s two baby daughters but his baby son Jason escapes. Jason, played by Todd Armstrong, is raised by his father’s loyal subjects and reaches the age to return to Thessaly as a skilled fighter to take back his rightful throne. After Jason saves Pelias from drowning, who he doesn’t recognize, he’s sent by the evil Pelias on a quest to bring back the Golden Fleece (sheep’s wool made of gold) so that the people will accept him knowing the gods favor him. Pelia believes that Jason will never return alive from this impossible journey.

Jason gets Argo to build him a ship and he hires a crew of the best fighters in Thessaly by having a competition and Hera, who received the prayers of one of Jason’s sisters before she was murdered, as an exchange for that act of faith will be Jason’s protector for only five times and clues him in that he can find the Golden Fleece on the other side of the planet on the island of Colchis. The hero is fearless as he travels through a series of adventures to reach his destination and must also overcome Acastus, played by Gary Raymond, a spy Pelias sent on the journey to make sure that Jason’s mission is a failure. When Jason and the Argonauts finally reach Colchis, they must fight the opposition of King Aeetes, played by Jack Gwillim, to accomplish their mission of removing the Golden Fleece. Fortunately for Jason, the high-priestess Media, played by Nancy Kovack, falls in love with him and goes against her kingdom to free him from prison so he can successfully get the famous Golden Fleece – an object of worship that has healing power and can bring peace.

Schwartz ended his review by admitting, “The film also comes with a rousing score by Bernard Herrmann, that evidently pleased many but didn’t do much for me.”

I can’t do this film justice by reviewing it. This is one of those that has to be seen to be believed. Currently this is streaming on Tubi, so check it out on there. Whether you’re a fan of Greek Mythology or not, you have to see it. The stop-motion special effects are one of the best ever seen. You will appreciate everything about the film, given the time period it was made.

Next week, we will be looking at the original “Clash of the Titans” in the continuation of “Greek Mythology Month.”