Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (2013)

I guess I spoke too soon about August surprising me so far.  Here comes a sequel nobody was asking for to a movie that barely anyone remembers.  I honestly almost forgot there was a first Percy Jackson film.  I can barely recall a single detail about it, other than I didn't care for it.  You might wonder why I even bothered seeing Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.  Well, what else am I going to do on a Wednesday night?  Plus I'm a nerd for any kind of fantasy film.  I still went into this with an open mind, 'cause you never know, it might be a pleasant surprise.  Sometimes a sequel can be an improvement, especially when the first wasn't that good.

Sea of Monsters figures the audience didn't remember the first Percy Jackson film either, as there's a brief narration that sets the story up.  However, if you're going to open with someone narrating, you might want to encourage the lead actor to not read it like he's bored, which is how Logan Lerman sounded.  Better yet, get Anthony Stewart Head to class it up by reading it, since he plays Chiron.  I don't remember "Giles" being in the first film, and it turns out he wasn't.  Chiron was played by Pierce Brosnan last time.  Outside of the primary trio, I don't think there's a single returning actor from the first film, which is a shame because if you go back and look at the cast list, it's star-studded.

This is going to be spoiler-ridden, by the way...

We come back to Camp Half-Blood to catch up with Percy and friends.  There's some weird "capture the flag meets king of the hill" game they're playing that only seems to establish that Clarisse (Leven Rambin), daughter of Ares, is extremely competitive with Percy.  She's practically a bully, but Percy tries to take the high ground with her.  I don't think it's any coincidence that Percy is very similar to "pussy".  Anyway, Percy is introduced to his half-brother, Tyson (Douglas Smith), who's a cyclops.  Tyson kind of looks like young-Brendan Fraser in Encino Man, which was all I could think about anytime I saw him.  I guess being a cyclops is bad because Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) hates him with a passion simply because he is one.

After an attack on the camp by a robot-bull-transformer-thing, they learn that the tree that protects the camp with a magical force field has been poisoned, leaving the camp vulnerable.  However, since nobody seems to have been seriously hurt in the attack, this doesn't seem like that much of a threat.  The only thing that can heal the tree is the Golden Fleece, which is in the Sea of Monsters, otherwise known to us as the Bermuda Triangle.  There's a prophecy that Percy is destined to either save or destroy Olympus, so he, Annabeth, Tyson and Grover the Satyr (Brandon T. Jackson) embark on a quest to recover the Fleece.  Another demigod, Luke (Jake Abel, who might as well be called young-Kevin Bacon), who I guess was presumed dead, also wants the Fleece.  He needs it to resurrect Kronos, the father of Zeus, Hades and Poseidon.  You still with me?

One thing I couldn't get out of my head at the beginning of the film is that this camp is full of the half-blood children of Olympian gods.  Are they all deadbeat dads?  They just go around spraying their seed everywhere and then ditching the mothers.  Classy.  A running subplot in the film is that Percy has been trying to communicate with his father, Poseidon, only to never get any response.  Later in the film when they catch up with Hermes (Nathan Fillion), he reveals that he's Luke's father, but not that he's Darth Vader, which would have been awesome.  He tells Percy to tell Luke to apologize for not being around and not to be angry at the world for his mistakes.  Hermes is too busy to tell him?  Later on, even Luke asks why Hermes couldn't tell him directly.  So yeah, the Olympian gods are terrible fathers.  Fillion's appearance was the highlight of the film though, and I would have totally given the whole thing a pass if anyone would have called him "Darth" as a joke.  "Will you deliver this message to my son, Luke?"  "I'll be sure to let him know, Darth."

I said earlier that the protective shield going down didn't feel like that much of a threat, and that's probably one of the biggest problems with Sea of Monsters.  There's no urgency at all to this quest, and you don't feel that there are any real stakes.  Any mistake is immediately corrected, and nobody dies or sustains any permanent injury, so it never feels like there are any consequences.  Finally, we reach the climax and Kronos swallows a character whole.  For a second I thought things were about to get real, but then a good guy is swallowed and you already know that they're both going to come out okay.  Plus, the power of the Fleece was to heal anything.  Moments later, Annabeth is stabbed while they are still in possession of the Fleece, yet they still go through the exercise of pretending she dies?  We know the Fleece is going to bring her back.  It's all pointless.

While on this quest, they always seemed to be winging it without any distinct plan.  There are a few times Percy leaps into action only to quickly find that he's backed into a corner without any way out.  How do you plan on getting out of this, Percy?  He always does though, sometimes being saved by some random object or character that you had no idea was anywhere around.  Then you see that Percy has really powerful control over the ocean, and I had to wonder why he didn't just lead with that.  If you have that kind of power, why not use it right up front?

Based on the acting, it didn't seem like anyone cared about the film.  Everyone feels like they are going through the motions.  Then again, there's no real depth or growth to the characters, and they are generally uninteresting.  Percy spends much of the film wondering if he's good enough or strong enough, but this is just kind of glossed over with any defining moment.  Besides Nathan Fillion, the other bright spot was Stanley Tucci, but he's always great.  He has a running gag of forgetting everyone's name, which was the only thing I found humorous about the movie.  Then again, maybe he forgot everyone's name because he didn't want to be there either and didn't bother memorizing them.

I can't blame the cast for not being all that invested when having to recite such awful, lifeless dialog.  This is some of the worst dialog I've seen in a while.  All the attempts at humor fall flat, and it's irritating because there were times where you could hear a funnier version of something said in your head, or imagine that a slightly different character reaction would have made all the difference.  I wonder how long ago Marc Guggenheim wrote this screenplay and why they didn't bring someone in to try and punch it up.  There's nothing clever or witty about it at all.  This is the guy that wrote Green Lantern though, so that might tell you something.

The special effects varied from decent looking to really awful.  The budget was around $90 million, so I guess it's passable for what they had to work with.  Some of the visual effects were for things that had no real point.  The aforementioned bull seemed to only exist in the movie because they really wanted to have a Transformer for the kids.  Some of the centaur and satyr effects were painful to look at.  There's a giant cyclops at the end that looked like something that would have barely been passable in a TV movie, or something that came out ten years ago.  I'd say the best effect were how unnaturally blue they got Alexandra Daddario's eyes to look, but those are all hers.  How is she not a bigger star?  Would someone please put her in something decent?

Ultimately, this is a kid's film and I could see my nephews really enjoying it.  I'm just disappointed that this didn't strive for something more.  You can make a fantasy film that appeals to more than just kids.  Director Thor Freudenthal (yes, Thor) has only directed kid's films up to this point and you can tell.  There are parts of the film that I can't imagine any adult enjoying, like the cab scene, which I found extremely irritating.  It's mercifully only about and hour and forty minutes, so I wasn't completely bored with it or caught myself checking my watch.

It's not so bad that I was angry, but Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters is a dated, lame movie that felt like something that should have gone direct to video or would have been better suited to TV.  The story and characters give you nothing to care about, and I can't recommend anything about it.  It's harmless, but little more than eye candy for kids.  I'd advise you to pass it, but it's safe enough to rent for your kids at some point.  Don't waste your hard earned money to see this in the theater, or you might encourage them to make another, and they teased another sequel at the end.  Don't do it!

1.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Host (2013) - Movie Review

One day, when The Host reaches TV audiences, I think the Tivo synopsis might read something like this:  An alien struggles with schizophrenia while humans say, "I love you", a lot.

It's no secret to anyone that I was not a fan of any of the Twilight series.  When I saw that Stephanie Meyer had another movie coming out based around aliens, I was really, really not interested in seeing it.  But then I saw that Andrew Niccol (Gattica) was writing and directing, and I thought maybe The Host had a chance after all.  Boy, was I wrong!

I don't know how much of the terribleness of The Host was due to Stephanie Meyer's source material, or Andrew Niccol's decisions as a writer/director.  What happened to this guy?  Ten years ago, I thought he was on his way to being one of the better Sci-Fi directors of our time, but he's been in steady decline since then.  His last film, In Time, at least had a decent idea and an interesting enough universe, but was undermined by uneven characters and performances.  Contrast that with The Host, which is dead on arrival.

The Host doesn't spend a lot of time explaining its universe, which basically comes down to that the world was invaded by these glowing, parasitic aliens called Souls.  A Soul takes a human host and possesses their mind, erasing all traces or their consciousness.  Once you are possessed, your eyes glow a bluish-silver, making your easily identifiable.  The stated goal of these aliens is to go from planet to planet to improve it.  They also claim to be peaceful and against taking life, but I guess this doesn't extend to destroying the minds of the hosts they inhabit, eh?  Anyway, you see that a Soul has to be surgically implanted in the back of a hosts neck.  If that's the case, then how did the first person get taken oven then?  How did any of this happen without anyone not noticing or fighting back?  Aren't these pretty giant plot holes?

Occasionally, the host's consciousness fights back, which is what happens when Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is implanted with a Soul that goes by "Wanderer".  This eventually gets shorted to "Wanda" (ugh, I know).  We also learn there are pockets of human resistance, but are later told the aliens outnumber the humans by one million-to-one.  Lets just take a step back and say there were only a few human casualties during this invasion.  Wouldn't that mean there are only about six or seven thousand humans left on Earth?  Why are the Souls worried about any kind of resistance at this point?.  One Soul even says to just let them die out.

Anyway, one of the head Souls, known only as The Seeker (Diane Kruger), wants Wanda to access the memories of Melanie and find where her group of human resistance is.  Melanie fights her, and this begins the hilariously bad dialog, where you have Melanie as a voice in her head, arguing with Wanda as she speaks aloud.  Even this isn't consistent, as there are times where Wanda just whispers when people are around, and other times when both Melanie and Wanda have a argument in their head.  It gets extremely confusing to follow at times, and you don't know who's voice you're hearing.  Even when she speaks aloud, there are times where you aren't sure if Melanie has managed to 'break through', or if it's just Wanda. I really simple fix to this would have been to play up on the fact that Melanie was from Lousiana. Melanie's accent would drop in and out throughout the film (something that should have been fixed anyway, considering she only spoke in voiceover), but if maybe they had focused on giving Melanie a stronger southern accent, and Wanda a standard, American accent, then you'd more easily be able to identify who was speaking.

Melanie is able to convince Wanda to find her group without alerting the rest of the Souls.  Melanie is desperate to get back to her younger brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury), and her boyfriend Jared (Max Irons).  However, when Jared sees Wanda/Melanie, his immediate response is to punch her.  Yep, he walks right up an hits her.  I know he recognizes she's been taken over, but you'd think if he was in love with Melanie, his first instinct when seeing her, infected or not, wouldn't be to attack her.  Then, there are several attempts at her life by others in their group.  Melanie tells Wanda that she shouldn't tell anyone that Melanie is still 'alive' inside Wanda's head, because they'll think she's trying to deceive them to stay alive.  Then Melanie says, "They're going to kill us."  Huh?  Doesn't that completely contradict what you just said?  If they're going to kill you anyway, why would you hide the one detail that might be the reason they keep you alive?  Does this make any sense at all?

Wanda starts to fall in love with Ian (Jake Abel), but Melanie is still in love with Jared.  I wouldn't think an alien would necessarily have a concept of human love, but whatever.  This leads to more unintentionally hilarious dialog where Melanie and Wanda argue over who should they should be kissing.  At one point Wanda asks Jared to kiss her in a way that she'll want to slap him (just go with it, okay), and he just kisses her a little differently.  I thought, why don't you just grab her boobs?  I usually get slapped when I do that.

The universe Stephanie Meyer has created isn't consistent at all.  The Souls say all they want to do is improve the planets they visit, which basically means make everything chrome or mirrored.  You see fancy sports cars, that based on engine noise, are still clearly combustion engines.  Was anyone involved in the movie aware of the fact that electric cars make very little noise?  Plus, why aren't all of the vehicles chrome?  You see plenty of people still driving around in older cars, and referring to having a full tank, so I guess these aliens haven't mastered alternative fuel sources or transportation.  Then you see a large superstore where the Souls get all of their supplies, and the store has a giant sign that simply says "STORE" on it.  Are the Souls giant morons or something?

There are plot threads that are introduced, but later dropped that would have been so much more interesting if they had been explored.  Melanie begins the movie throwing herself out of a window and landing several stories below, leaving a dent in the concrete.  They say she didn't break any bones or hurt any vital organs.  The Seeker explains it off by saying, "This one wants to live."  I wish the laws of physics worked like that.  You hope that maybe she's some kind of superhuman, but this is never mentioned again.  You also see that The Seeker may have some internal conflict of her own, but it's also dropped as quickly as it's introduced.  It's a waste to cast someone like Diane Kruger as The Seeker and then make her act like a robot.

This is what bugs me about Stephanie Meyer.  It's just lazy world building where she borrows heavily from other sci-fi or fantasy sources, but then shows she doesn't understand what makes those things interesting. She's already shown that she doesn't know how to write interesting characters or dialog, so what else is there?  It's not all Meyer's fault though.  Andrew Niccol could have tried to explain some of these things better, or improve the dialog, but there didn't seem to be any attempt to liven this up.  The inclusion of all of these various elements just serves to distract you since they are so poorly implemented in the story.

Now despite everything I've said about the inconsistent, plot hole-riddled story, laughable dialog, and missed opportunities to do something interesting, I'd be able to give the film a pass if it wasn't so freakin' boring!  The Host is inexplicably over 2 hours long, and nothing of significance happens the entire time.  It's just talking, staring off into space, and forced melodrama.  I seriously struggled to stay awake for the last hour of The Host.

Poor Saoirse Ronan.  She's one of my favorite young actors (check out Hanna if you haven't already), but this is a film that is totally beneath her and wastes her talent, as well as Diane Kruger's.  The rest of the cast is extremely forgettable.  Even William Hurt seemed to be sleepwalking through this.

I could keep going, and I already took a bunch of crap out of this already too long review, but I think you get the picture by now.

I will say that with all of the unintentional humor, this is a movie that's ripe for a drinking game.  Every time someone tries to harm Wanda/Melanie, drink!  Someone says, "I love you.", drink!  Wanda/Melanie kisses someone, drink!  Wanda and Melanie have a head argument, drink!  You'll probably get alcohol poisoning with that last one.

The Host is quite honestly one of the worst films I can remember seeing in the past decade or so.  I can't believe I've about to say this, but I'd watch any of the Twilight films before having to sit through this again.  It's that bad.  Terrible dialog, ridiculous love triangle, and plodding story where nothing happens.  There is one way I can recommend this film: as a cure for insomnia.  It'll have you out within an hour.

0.5 out of 5 Death Stars