More photos in the red carpet premiere. Click me!
By Brigit AnneMarie Zoë Valeri
My review of the Sea of Monsters movie:
"First: SPOILER ALERT
[Though I don't know why any of this would be considered spoilers since it's just an adaptation of a book that we've ALL read. But whatever.]
Okay. The opening sequence was a little weird. It was just like "JELLYFISH! EEL! SERPENT! KELP!" and there was a badly-written voice-over of Percy saying "I'm a demigod" and stuff like that. I was like "Um...okay."
Then it explained the Thalia/Luke/Annabeth/Grover thing in this flashback thing. And it was amazing. That was perfect.
One thing that bothered me is that it started at camp. The book starts at school. It's the last day, his only friend is Tyson, and then the Laistrygonians are there. NONE of that happened in the movie. In the movie, Tyson arrived at camp and told Dionysus and Chiron: "I'm a son of Poseidon and he guided me here to camp." And then they summon Percy and he's like "I have a cyyclops for a brother, wut."
The oracle thing kind of bothered me. In general, it was pretty awesome and true to the book. Yay! But none of that happened in THIS book. Clarisse gets a prophecy in SoM. Not Percy. And the prophecy he received was...THE GREAT PROPHECY. WHAT?! He's not supposed to get that until the last book!! Ugh. And the prophecy was changed. "A half-blood of the eldest gods/shall reach twenty against all odds/ [I don't know know if they changed this line, and if they did: I don't know what they changed it to]/ The evil's soul cursed blade shall reap". I'm sorry...WHAT?!
And the oracle also explained some stuff about the first Titan war. AND IT WAS WRONG. This isn't just a Percy Jackson thing; they changed the actual myth from Ancient times. I know there are a lot of different tellings, but the one this movie told didn't fit any of them. "Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon escaped the stomach of Kronos and freed their helpless sisters. Then the three brothers killed Kronos and put him inside a golden coffin."
No. Just no.
Then there's the actual quest itself. I was happy with that for the most part. The kidnapping of Grover was kind of weird. Luke kidnapped him, and then sent him to Polyphemus's island. They had a reason for it in the movie, but it was still kind of weird.
The conversation with Hermes was AMAZING. OH MY GOD I LOVED THAT!! XD One small thing: Martha was kind of mean, and not as nice as she is in the books. And George didn't say a thing about rats.
They reached Luke's ship and I liked that. But Tyson didn't name the hippocampus. He said "Goodbye, friend," instead of "Bye, Rainbow!" Small and unimportant, but I was disappointed. Except WHY WAS SILENA THERE LIKE WHAT THE HADES ASDFGHJKL. (I think Ethan was there too, but that makes sense. Chris Rodriguez was PERFECT). AND THE MANTICORE. THE MANTICORE ISN'T UNTIL BOOK 3.
The actual sea of monsters part was cool. But they shortened it. They took out Scylla (though Clarisse mentions that she encountered her earlier) and they actually get swallowed by Charybdis, which was actually pretty cool. I loved Clarisse and the Ironclad and the undead Confederates. The Confederate captain was probably my favorite character in the whole movie.
They took out Circe's island though, which made me sad. I wanted to see Percy become a guinea pig! I know that's not super important to the plot of that book, but it sets up the whole thing about why Hylla and Reyna hate Percy so much in Son of Neptune (but not important, unless they do movies for the Heroes of Olympus books as well). They also took out the Sirens, which I felt was an important bit of Annabeth's character development.
Instead, the only island they visited was Polyphemus's. But instead of being a paradise filled with sheep, it was an abandoned amusement park called "CirceLand".
Weird.
But I liked how that played in later. Like, to get to Polyphemus's cave, they had to take a broken ride down this tunnel. And Tyson was scared so he grabbed Clarisse's hand and she was like "Tyson, let go of my hand," and Tyson was like "Sorry," and Percy started singing "It's a small world" and Annabeth joined in and then Clarisse was like "Would you two shut up?!" and I laughed.
The fight with Polyphemus was pretty good. Not much to say on that.
It was what was AFTER the fight with Polyphemus that angered me.
Up until that point, I was like "Yay this movie is awesome and pretty close to the book. This fandom is FINALLY getting some good movies!" Then Luke showed up on the island. In the book, Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Tyson, and Clarisse make it back to Florida, Clarisse goes ahead with the fleece, and then Luke intercepts the other four, right? Well in the movie, Luke just intercepts all five of them outside of Polyphemus's cave. Then he pushes Tyson off a cliff and takes the fleece. They kept the thing where everyone thinks Tyson was dead and it was really emotional and stuff, but it happened when the Ironclad blew up in the book, and he returned to fight Polyphemus. Here, he "dies" when Luke shoots him with a crossbow and he falls off a cliff, then he returns later in this next fight, but I'm getting to that.
Luke then proceeds to take the fleece, and put it on Kronos's coffin. And then KRONOS RISES. HE F**KING RISES.
AND HE LOOKS LIKE SOME DEMONIC LAVA MONSTER.
NO!!!! IN THE BOOKS, IT SPECIFICALLY SAYS THAT ANYONE IN PROXIMITY TO KRONOS WHEN HE'S IN HIS TRUE FORM, THEY WILL DISINTEGRATE.
AND KRONOS IS SUPPOSED TO TAKE OVER LUKE'S BODY! bUT NOT UNTIL THE END OF BOOK 4. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?!?!
Percy dramatically frees himself and Grover and Annabeth and Clarisse and they attack Luke and his mini army. Then Kronos eats Luke. Then Kronos eats Grover.
I'm sorry...WHAT IN HADES IS GOING ON HERE?!?!
Eventually, Percy decides to stab Kronos with riptide. Kronos is all "No! The cursed blade!" and Percy's like "The evil's soul, cursed blade shall read. Of course!" and then he somehow cuts Kronos in half.
NOOOOOOOOOOO.
YOU STUPID SCRIPTWRITERS. (Or whoever decided to do that).
YOU ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE WRITING FOR THIS FANDOM.
GET OUT.
NOW.
WE DISOWN YOU.
Tyson reappears sometime during that fight, and then they all go back home and put the fleece on Thalia's tree and the tree heals and all is well. Then later, Thalia comes back and OH MY GOD THAT WAS PERFECT.
YEAH!
YOU GO, SCRIPTWRITERS (in that particular bit)!
AND DIRECTOR! WOOOO!
Thalia was absolutely perfect. That whole ending was perfect. And word for word from the books. "Who are you?" "I'm Thalia. Daughter of Zeus." END.
YES!!
So. My overall verdict:
I actually don't know. I was very happy with it until the weird thing with Kronos at the end. I really did not like that.
But the Thalia thing was perfect.
And it was definitely WAY better and closer to the book than the Lightning Thief movie. Like, by far.
A few general things: I don't think it was quite as well written as it could have been. Where was the snarkiness? Why wasn't Percy all snarky and stuff? Where was Annabeth's wisdom and pride? And Tyson's childishness?
I really liked Clarisse, though.
And that was my review of the Sea of Monsters movie."How about your review who already watched the movie. Let me hear.
