Spoilers ahead
So we see our hero, Percy, roughly a year after he reclaimed the lightning bolt of Zeus, and not much has happened, he believes himself to be a "One Quest Wonder", we are told of how years ago another powerful demigod named Thalia Grace gave her life to save Annabeth, Grover and Luke. She was turned into a tree, which is now dying, poisoned by Luke, the baddy. Meanwhile rival Clarisse is given a quest to retrieve the golden fleece, an artifact which could potentially save the tree, and so the gang set off with Percy's newly emerged cyclops half brother Tyson. They ride the chariot of damnation, Grover is captured, they meet Hermes, have a stand off with Luke, who is attempting to raise Kronos (the evil titan), they narrowly escape and are quickly swallowed by a sea monster. They reunite with Clarisse in the belly of the beast and make it to Circeland, where they fight Polyphemus, Luke, and a form of Kronos. They return home and the Golden fleece works so well it brings back Thalia.
Granted that all sounds weird, and in fairness it is, a jumbled up mish-mash of what the hell am I watching? So my first problem is with the plot, specifically the beginning and the end. Percy is told "The great prophecy" in this film when he isn't meant to hear it until the last installation in the series, that's just a picky point for me, the ending was terrible though, the part at Circeland. It didn't happen in the books, nowhere near anything like that happened, it's tragic. I was particularly annoyed at the point where death lost meaning, "Oh no Tyson died, but he fell in the water and was healed by Poseidon.", "Oh no, Annabeth died, but we have a magical item that'll heal her right back up", "Oh no, Grover was eaten, literally, but it's alright because Deus Ex Machina..." and to top it all off they seem to have killed off the central villain, AGAIN, seriously FOX, chill out.
I actually would like to give some credit to the actors, the main cast; Lerman, Daddario, and Jackson (the coincidence in last names amuses me) have wonderful chemistry on screen, and even if his caricatured version of child-like Tyson wore thin at points Douglas Smith's acting made me chuckle through most of the film. I strongly approve of Anthony Head adopting the role of Chrion, he is an amazing actor and suits the role well, although he may be a bit typecast. Stanley Tucci as the ever amazing Dionysus is brilliant, I'm glad they actually put this character into the films.
This brings me to my next points, things that were/were not shown in the films. Now as it has been made clear time and time again even Hollywood cannot recreate the magical world inside a book, the Harry Potter films were kind of thrown together in a way that attained some of the great parts of the book with less of the annoying Hollywood crap, that might just be the effect of the British though, just saying. In any case this film attempted to make up for the lack of any relevant details in "The Lightning Thief". But the problem was in their attempt to recover they overshot it a little, I spent at least 45 minutes listening to them explain what they missed out in the first film, I felt sorry for the people who didn't read the books as they must have been so completely overwhelmed.
The film has taken a beautiful first person narrative and smeared teenage drama all over it, it's not a drama, it's supposed to be fun, like all films are. These characters are meant to be surprisingly naive and positive about everything despite the messed up situation. I don't know why whoever in charge decided to have the MAIN CHARACTER mope around for half the film, the small moments of weakness Percy shows in the books are just that, and most of them don't appear until the later books. But I digress, the constant use of some form of CGI was a little tiring, especially in 3D, however for the insane creations the team have to create, they looked fairly cool. The score was fitting I suppose, but could have been better.
In closing, if you are a fan of the books you have to watch it, it is expected of you, and then we can all cry about Fox ruining our favourite series. If you've got kids, take 'em to see it, it's got fish ponies and bear scorpions, if you want a good quality, well put together film, watch something else. I give it 5/10 for trying, I'll watch any other films in the series because I'm so into the books, but so far "The Lightning Thief" is the better film. I beg you Riordan, write the next film, I'm out.
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