Harry Potter might have ridden off into the sunset as the highest-grossing film series of all time, but a significant part of the film series' legacy has been studios snatching up popular YA (young adult) novels and trying to start a profitable movie franchise with it. For the most part, it's been a real challenge for studios to try and duplicate the success of the Potter movies, with film adaptations of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Eragon, and the Narnia films to some extent, failing to strike gold in Potter's, and Warner Bros., wake. In fact, the closest film series which copied WB's similar formula with Potter and see domestic and international success has been The Twilight Saga, and even there, the series has been mixed with fanboys and critics at best, and panned, lampooned and heavily criticized at worst, depending on the installment. 20th Century Fox took a shot at making their Harry Potter-like franchise tent pole with Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief in early 2010 to a surprisingly solid box office returns internationally, and good no's here at home, as the first installment made $88 million and additional $135+ in international markets, bringing the total figure to over $220 million worldwide. So naturally, a sequel was sure to follow, and sure enough, the son of Poseidon and his demigod friends are back for the sequel, titled Sea of Monsters.
In this installment, Percy Jackson (once again played by Logan Lerman) must rescue Camp Half-Blood by retrieving the Golden Fleece, before an ancient evil destroys their home and possibly, the entire world. The tone and the atmosphere is darker than last time, yet still able to throw in a few comic set pieces, similar to the style of the film series i've already mentioned countless times in this review. It's the next step for the studio to try and advance another film series that isn't X-Men and strangely enough, i'm all for it. The Lightning Thief was actually enjoyable, despite the fact it was a cash in on the enormous success of the Potter series, and the spin on ancient Gods, demigods, and Greek mythology was an interesting premise and clearly the filmmakers and the cast had great fun playing around with the source material. I doubt we'll see another series like the Harry Potter Saga, or even the Lord of the Rings Trilogy for that matter in my lifetime, but Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters makes no bones about what it's supposed to be: a breezy, enjoyable popcorn flick. Add this to my upcoming list of movies you should see during the summer movie season, which you will see within the coming week or two.
And here's (finally) part two of my list of the best from last year, along with the full list at the bottom. 5. The Wind Rises - The worst thing I can honestly say about this gorgeous animated feature is that, at 126 minutes, it wasn't long enough. I could get lost in Hayao Miyazaki's final effort for hours and not get bored. The writer-director-animator is a master of whisking us away to new worlds of his own creation, but how fitting that his last masterwork is where we're rooted into the past as Miyazaki tells the story of real-life Jiro Horikoshi as he lives out his dreams of building airplanes, despite them being used for the Imperial Army back in World War II. Every last frame of this film - from Jiro's dreams with fellow designer Giovanni Caproni and his brief romance with Nahoko, to showing the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1932 and his journey to Nazi Germany several years later - is painstakingly beautiful and artfully crafted to within an inch of his...
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