Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

I went to see this movie because my brother really wanted to see it.  He greatly enjoyed the first Percy Jackson movie, “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief”,  and was looking forward to the second.  He gave me the DVD of the first movie to watch before going to see this movie.  It was enjoyable as was this one.  It is not necessary to see the first movie before seeing this movie, but having a familiarity with the main characters does help some.

Imagine if Greek Mythology were real.  The gods are real and they sometimes descend from Olympus to play on the mortal plain.  And by play, I mean make with the sexy time with mortals and produce offspring.  Percy Jackson is such an offspring, a demigod, the child of Poseidon and a mortal mother.

After coming off of the high of a successful quest to save the world from Zeus’ wrath, Percy has settled down to a life of mediocrity in his demigod training camp.  He’s definitely one of the better demigods, but he never seems to be able to win at any of the demigod games.  He worries that he may be a one hit wonder and will never be able to complete a quest again.

All that changes when the tree that provides the magical barrier for the camp is poisoned and a mechanical bull runs amok in the camp.  Without the barrier, the demigods are defenseless.  The tree must be healed and the only thing that can cure her is the Golden Fleece.  This calls for a quest!  Percy Jackson to the rescue!  Oh, wait, no, they pick someone else to go.  Percy and his friends, of course, go anyway.

The action in the movie follows a very basic formula: travel to a location, discover a mythological wonder, do something with that wonder, repeat as necessary.  It’s basic, but it’s enough.  Well, it’s enough if you like Greek Mythology like I do.  It’s doubly pleasurable because they actually seem to care about the mythology, at least to the extent I remember from my college Greek Mythology class.  This makes the Percy Jackson books and movies a great introduction to mythology for children.  I saw a girl on the train reading a Greek Mythology book and immediately wondered if we had Percy Jackson to thank for it.

I certainly have my quibbles with the movie.  Like how the whole thing with poisoning the tree ends up being a completely useless action with the sole purpose of creating a reason for the quest.  But you know, it’s a kid’s movie.  These things can be forgiven.  I think kids would find the movie very enjoyable and there’s enough to entertain mythology loving adults too.