Percy 2

Like an American cousin of Harry Potter, the half-blood prince of PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS (2013) is studying a kindle-pedia at summer Camp Hogwerks when he’s called away for a Bermuda triangle quest with a satyr guide, on a mission of mercy in search of a Golden Fleece macguffin. 

Leader of the pack Clarisse has deemed Percy an unlikely hero, so this becomes a tale about winning friendships and loyalty in a mawkish fantasy soap-opera that revolves around typical absentee father/ problem child issues, easily solved by typically conformist platitudes. 

Spells “make the mystical look normal”: an undercover/ fitting-in trick that translates as looking mediocre or just plain boring. At times, this sequel plays like some imaginary episode of ‘Olympus Hills, 90210’. 

PJ: SOM flips between hysterically overwrought, and tediously sentimental, for a team adventure with strap-on mythology. While visiting Washington, D.C., Percy and his chums find that Hermes operates a packing/ shipping warehouse to rival the average Amazon wish-fulfilment centre (oh, a droll Greek reference offered freely). 

After the supposedly-cool surfing without boards, on a magical wave-crest, zombies form the crew of a warship lost in the belly of a mega-whale (um, isn’t Jonah a Hebrew myth, not a Greek one?). Never mind, the vacuous lesson preached by this CGI exhibitionism is that “parents... make mistakes.” This is a US fantasy that fearlessly boasts a ‘harpy barista’ as one bemusing screen credit.