There's a crisis at Half-blood Camp: the barrier protecting the demigod enclave has been poisoned. So hot-shot Clarisse (Rambin) leads an expedition to the Sea of Monsters to collect the healing Golden Fleece. But Percy (Lerman) has just discovered that he may be the one prophesied to save Olympus when Chronos is resurrected using, yes, the Golden Fleece. And he knows his former nemesis Luke (Abel) is planning something nasty. So he gathers pals Grover (Jackson) and Annabeth (Daddario), plus his half-brother cyclops Tyson (Smith) and heads off on his own mission.

Director Freudenthal doesn't wait around for us to find sense in the plot, nor does he bother to build intrigue or actual suspense. We are simply thrown into a series of manic adventures, some of which are vaguely connected to the narrative. Along the way, some surprisingly dark sequences skate very close to killing off characters. But there are also moments of nutty comedy (such as a frantic taxi ride with blind drivers Pyle, Brown and Birdsong).

The young cast is fine in roles that require physicality and only a little acting. Lerman is likeable if rather dull, although he improves as Percy becomes more heroic. And the adult actors steal their scenes by quietly upstaging their younger costars, even though their characters are superfluous. Fillion's cheeky scene as Hermes (Luke's father) imparts one morsel of information but feels both gimmicky and endless.

But the real problem is that as the film continues, it gets increasingly cartoonish, with just-adequate effects threatening to swamp the actors. Several long sequences are so pointless that they inadvertently reveal how thin the plot is: cut them out and the film might have some momentum to carry us along. As is, it's more like an extended episode of a Saturday-morning TV series than an actual movie. But if it came on television, you probably wouldn't switch over.

themes, violence, language

1.Aug.13