Review: At the utopian fun-house otherwise known as Camp Half-Blood, life for Percy Jackson (Lerman) and his ilk is groovy. But he gets a not-so-welcome surprise one day when introduced to his half-brother Tyson ( Douglas Smith). To add to his shock (but not awe), Tyson is a cyclops! Soon enough, their idyll is shattered when they are attacked by what can be best described as a rampaging, mechanical bull. The bull manages to breach their shield. The shield was supported by a magical tree created by Zeus when his daughter Thalia Grace (Kwiatkowski), who met her maker after a bloody battle went wrong, was poisoned.
After the bull is turned to scrap metal, the perpetrator is found to be Luke Castellan (Abel), a rather angry young lad sporting a sulky expression like a kid does when denied his dinner. Luke, for no particular reason, wants to turn Mount Olympus into rubble. But the flaxen haired Annabeth Chase (Alexandra Daddario) keeps having brainwaves throughout the film. When she isn't having brainwaves, she seems to love to hug Percy, presumably to boost his confidence levels and harden his resolve, which often wanes.
She realizes that only the Golden Fleece can restore the tree to health and in doing so, save all of them too. But the camp's boozy director, aptly named Dionysus (Tucci), sends the God of War's daughter, the impossibly bitchy Clarisse La Rue (LevenRambin), to find it instead. Not to be outdone, Percy gathers his gang - Annabeth, Tyson and Grover Underwood (Jackson) - to locate the Golden Fleece on his own.
The best thing about this predictable film is undoubtedly the special effects. For want of anything better, Sea of Monsters is a mishmash of various similar films in this genre and a passable potpourri of Greek mythology retold with a contemporary veneer.