My full fledged Sea of Monsters review
The good news: it's better than the first movie!
The bad news: it messed up the overarching series storyline really badly and it hurts my brain to think about how they'll try to connect the pieces if they get the third movie. But we knew that already, so more on that later.
After I got back from the movie last night, I did a bullet list review on tumblr in case you were at all interested in my ridiculous, late night ALL CAPS scream fest. This review will have CAPS screaming, of course, but to a lesser extent and be slightly more critical of things.
I went into Sea of Monsters with pretty low expectations. It doesn't have a very high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, plus the couple of reviews I read beforehand were mixed and leaned toward "everything but Nathan Fillion and Stanley Tucci sucks, stop ripping off Harry Potter," so apprehension was high while I was waiting for the lights to go down. I really really just didn't want it to be worse than the first movie. See, extremely low standards.
However, I was pleasantly surprised by how engrossed I was from the beginning of the movie. It took me a while to get into The Lightning Thief - actually, I still can't get through the first 20 minutes without cringing mightily at some of the acting and lines. But SoM got the pace going and set the tone right at the beginning and kept it up throughout the rest of the movie all the way to weirdly abrupt and awkward end, and there was very little (if any) cringing from me this time around.
SoM finally captured the quirkiness of the PJO universe. That's largely what the first movie lacked until the quest scenes, and even then, it was still fairly dull. Half the fun of the PJO books is guessing which mythological creature or god is going to show up next! The movies are still missing a lot of Percy's snark - there were a few moments where I was like, "BOOK PERCY YOU'RE HERE," (for instance, when he told Chiron it was "raze" with a z and he had checked with the Oracle even) but he was pretty tame most of the time. I like Logan in the role, but don't like the way Percy's characterized in the movie.
I think a lot of my delight came from finally seeing some of my favorite aspects of the books on the screen. It was a lot of the little stuff that made me feel joy over the big monster productions. They mentioned the Stolen Chariot and Bronze Dragon short stories! George and Martha made an appearance! Tartarus is in Cleveland! The Fates squabbling over the eyeball! It turned me into a big mush of squee at the beginning.
I have no idea why they skipped out on Mr. D in the first movie because OH MY GOD he added so much. I cackled at everything he did - the Jesus crack was so greaaaaat and the way he stole Annabeth's idea for the Golden Fleece. With Anthony Stewart Head as Chiron, it really becomes apparent how badly miscast Pierce Brosnan was for the role in the first place and how off base his character design was. King Giles just fits so much better, it hurts.
I enjoyed the addition of the Thalia backstory because BABY THALIA AND LUKE AND ANNABETH AND GROVER but Annabeth also got a lot more dimension from it in this movie. I was so glad she wasn't just the Percy cheerleader she was in the first movie. She had character development, she had motivation, she did smart things (already got into a nitpicker with this on tumblr because TUMBLR) and she had scenes without Percy. Clarisse was the Action Girl in this movie, so she didn't have much action time, but she still contributed. Her interactions with Tyson were great, and Alexandra Daddario's acting has improved a lot since the first movie.
Clarisse and Tyson were great additions with the cast, and I adored them both. I wasn't a big fan of book!Clarisse, but now I am! Her attitude was much appreciated. Tyson was also great, although they played the don't-discriminate-kids-okay card a bit heavy. I'm a bit sad neither of them will be around if there's a third movie but we'll have THALIA instead. Which is GREAT NEWS because THALIA.
Luke was probably the only character I didn't like, and that's because he was just as thin skinned of a villain as he was in the first one. He was very much a cartoon villain too, to the point of getting eaten by Kronos (I'm coming back to this, DON'T WORRY). I wish they would've given him and Annabeth more scenes together because Luke/Annabeth is much less creepy in the movie universe and SEXUAL TENSION was high the one time they interacted. Or at least touched on Thalia's sacrifice as his overall motivation, aside from the Olympians being jerks. I'm just thoroughly unsatisfied with the way Luke has been presented in the movies, and that's not going to change, I think.
The other, most obvious thing I'm annoyed with is the Kronos storyline. I can handle the A plot of the book being messed with and plots of the quest being left out like Siren Bay and Circe's Island. I have come to accept that not everything about my favorite books will always be translated from page to screen properly. Two separate mediums! But I am not down with the total annihilation of the series main storyline for god knows what reason, and that's what they did in this one.
Yes, children, the giant fire monster in the previews is Kronos. Luke actually succeeds at bringing him back and giant fire monster Kronos then decides to EAT HIM (and Grover). He spits them both back up once Percy defeats him in the weirdest interpretation of the Great Prophecy ever. I going to be that person that gets nitpicky and is all RIPTIDE ISN'T THE CURSED BLADE WARBLE GARBLE right now, so point and laugh. Honestly, though, the real reason I have a problem with Kronos actually appearing in this one is continuity for the next movie. Even though Chiron handwaves it and is like, "Nah, that prophecy might not have been referring to what happened in Circeland, SORRY BRO," it still fucks with the Luke plot mightily.
I know they couldn't have done the, "Luke has a new scheme to bring Kronos back!" each movie like in the books because talk about redundancy - as much as I love them, the PJO books tend to be painfully redundant and predictable with the quest from camp formula in every book with TLO and MoA being the two that break the mold. But why not hold Kronos off until the (possible) third movie? Yeah, I know, no guarantee that they'll get a third movie, not with the bad reviews and competition they have this weekend, and yet if they do get a third one, they'll have shot themselves in the foot with the Big Bad plot. Why would Luke go back and serve the dude WHO ATE HIM? Why would he ever think serving Kronos is a good idea? He could leave that asshole in Circeland and never go back. WHY WAS THIS CREATIVE CHOICE MADE, WRITERS, I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
Also, whoever messed up the original Kronos mythology needs a shaking, even thought the stained glass window animation was gorgeous.
The ham-handed handling of the villain plot and climax scene aside, overall, I got what I wanted from the movie: it was so much better than the first and it was closer to the books too.
So go see it so we can get a third one so I can have more THALIA kthxbye.