Writer: Dzamira Dzafri

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Watch this if you liked: "Percy Jackson And The Lightning Thief"

Was Chris Columbus too busy to direct the second one? "Diary Of A Wimpy Kid" director Thor Freudenthal's take on the sequel to the popular demi-god film in 2010 might be closer to the books, but boy was the first one a lot better.

First off, let's begin by listing the bad points of the film. The editing in some scenes of "Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters", especially the comedic ones, were choppy and it made the actors look like they had slow reactions.

Some of the actors that had little to no experience in playing out funny scenes feel like they were forced to say a line that wasn't in their comfort zone. Delivery of jokes and certain dialogue in scenes were peculiar and some were not even needed. The film would have been a lot better if it wasn't for the forced comedic routines, and it is obvious that the actors didn't feel comfortable with the script at times.

This may have something to do with the new director Thor as he has a background of family comedy films, which might be the direction that the producers wanted to take. But it just didn't go and it wasn't needed and the reviewer would have preferred for the film to have the same feel as the first.

Another element that needs to be picked on besides the uncomfortable script and the editing is the strange storyline that dragged at the start but started speeding up faster and faster towards the end, like they just rushed it to save time. The reviewer also hadn't read any of the books it was based on but the storyline also needed a lot of help as the 'big finale' at the end seemed a little too lame. It was like a climax that you expect to get but didn't reach.

Now that we got the bad points out of the way, there are some good points about the film. Though Thor didn't seem like he was comfortable with the big franchise either, the cinematography was pleasant. The CGI and the effects are another story especially when it came to Kronos.

The actors, though they didn't have the ability to deliver comedic lines, still did pretty well. The outstanding young actors include Logan Lerman and Leven Rambin. Logan Lerman reprises his role as Percy and the reviewer would be lying if she said that the actor was untalented.

Leven Rambin, the new addition to the franchise, played her role as Clarisse, daughter of the God of War really well and she was by far the most entertaining character in the film besides Stanley Tucci's Mr. D and Nathon Fillion's Hermes.

Jake Abel, who reprises his role as Luke, was also a great part of the film as he played his character even better than he did in the first film.

To wrap it up, the story was sort of weak, and on the whole the film was pretty disappointing, but fans of the book should definitely give it a go because it apparently is closer to the books so they might appreciate it more. To the rest, the film is decently funny and entertaining, but there are a lot of flaws in the film that you might not be able to ignore, even if you wanted to.

Cinema Online, 02 August 2013