Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

My favorite Transformers movie.

Hey y'all, welcome to another week at The Tagline! Today because I haven't watched any new movies and I'm kind of feeling like a jerk, I'm going to talk about that sequel to the Percy Jackson movie that came out like a month ago. Most of the time, most people I think go to movies because they imagine there is at least a chance that they will be half-way decent. In comparison, I often go to movies because I know they will be regrettable shitshows. I crave that kind of sordid fuckfest, the way normal people crave actually good movies. Do I take a twisted enjoyment out of movies that are comically awful? Yes, I certainly do (On that score I am filled with regret that my schedule has yet to permit The Mortal Instruments into my viewing area. I think that is definitely what I'm after, but it still eludes me). This was the general attitude that drew me into the theater in August to go see Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel to Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Both are based at least nominally on a series of young adult books, all focusing on the eponymous Percy Jackson(the kid from Perks of Being a Wallflower, who is a scion of the god Poseidon. He hangs out with all his half godly friends at a camp which is specially set aside for them, with a really stupid name (Camp Halfblood how creative right?) After the events of the first movie, where Percy stopped some bad god related stuff from happening, Percy has been experiencing a dry spell. In the hero department I mean. Probably in other departments too, he only hangs around this one Athena daughter who's clearly not giving him any action, and this other Mars daughter who is just making him look like a chump all the time.

This is a fish-horse. It's a real thing though seriously.

So Percy is a wienery loser, who feels like a loser, and is. Just when he thinks his shitty loser existence couldn't possibly get lamer, he discovers his half-brother, who is a badly CGI-d cyclops and also a dork. Despite that fact, we get to enjoy Percy and his two only friends being really mean to the cyclops even though he's nice to them and mostly oblivious. Percy is like the one who will bring balance to the force or something only Mt. Olympus force, or maybe he'll destroy the world, no one knows, and he's really angsting about that, and also about what a loser he is. Then the guy who's ass he kicked in the first movie shows up to taunt him, and announce that he's going to resurrect Chronus, who in this movie is basically the demon from the Night On Bald Mountain cartoon, only made out of lava. This is widely regarded as a bad idea, because Chronus eats everyone, and once resurrected will kill everyone probably especially the guy who resurrects him spoilers. Percy is determined to stop him, even though he's demonstrated that he's kind of a fuck-up. Also that new Fall Out Boy song plays while he's a loser. You know the one. That's to make things seem edgier for the 11-year olds I guess.

They have to get around Ron Perlman.

So long story short, they go on a wacky adventure that includes a crazy witches with one eye taxi ride that reminded me of the Knight Bus in Harry Potter, only even worse. Also they visit Hermes and that is Nathan Fillion and let me say he has REALLY PACKED IT ON MAN. He is like 2 or 3 Mal Reynolds now. Also there is... what else Polyphemus who is voiced by Ron Perlman. Even though he doesn't technically appear on camera, I'm still saying that counts for my rule about him appearing in shitty movies. Anyway there's a lot of dumb things that happened, none of them were interesting, it was not a very good story, and not a good movie.

He has a pen that turns into the sword he's holding here.

Now the first Percy Jackson wasn't a great movie either, but it was passingly amusing. It also seemed less like it was specifically aimed at a very, very young crowd. This movie is very VERY short on plot or character development even compared to the first, and instead rehashes a lot of the same character arc it had already explored, meanwhile throwing in lots of zany scooby-doo style adventures to take up time until the movie had run for what they felt was long enough. This was by the way another one of those movies that wasn't actually that long but felt like it ran literally forever (it was just over an hour and 40 minutes, but I swear to the gods of Olympus I thought I was going to die in that movie theater). So I was unfortunately double disappointed. I didn't get a bad movie that was funny, and I certainly didn't get a good movie. I'll try not to think about how the people in this movie are all about my age and wildly wealthy for making bad movies with vague Greek Mythology themes. Whatever I say, the movie had its desired effect on the tween audience that is enamored with the book series. Against a 90 million dollar budget, Sea of Monsters took in around 165 million, which is better than it deserved. I guess technically I'm part of the problem.

That's all for today folks! Join me on Thursday when I talk about the girl from Ginger Snaps sawing apart people in stilettos and a garter belt. Bet that'll get your attention.