ENTERTAINMENT B1
FURNITURE
TRAVEL
SCIENCE
ARTS & CULTURE
HEALTH
SPORTS
SPORTS
AUGUST 15 - 21, 2013
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
‘Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters’
COURTESY OF DREAM WORKS ANIMATION LLC
BY MARK JACKSON
EPOCH TIMES STAFF
What’s the wanton ransacking of
myths, the sullying of ancient
Grecian aesthetics with modern
Dude-iPad-Whatever culture, and
the unashamed ripping off of the
superior Harry Potter series called?
Kitsch.
“Good artists borrow, great artists steal,” it’s been said. While not
the most honourable of expressions, it’s true that there’s nothing new under the sun. Let’s call
it a “re-telling”. If the re-telling
is subtle enough that you can’t
spot the influence, or if you do,
you don’t mind – that’s generally
good art.
If it’s a brazen wholesale ransacking – that’s usually bad art.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, is
a wall-to-wall, ransacking rip-off.
I can imagine the archetypal
cigar-chomping Hollywood mogul behind his desk hollering,
“Get me kiddie product! It’s easy!
Grab the ‘half-blood’ concept from
‘Harry Potter’ and mash it up with
Greek mythology!”
“Mash-up” is a musical term.
Actually, just about everything
existing in the world today is
some form of mixed-up mash-up.
But is it good for kids? Let’s see.
Here’s the story: You’ve got your
“CampHalf-Blood”. It’s a sleep-away
camp for elite, good-looking, often
spoiled 90210-type kids, except
they’re all half deities.
Stanley Tucci plays god-of-wine
Dionysus, a polo-shirted, goateed,
functioning-alcoholic twit of a
camp counsellor, who doesn’t get
that he ought not to say “whatever”
all the time, like the campers do,
because he’s not 14.
The movie kicks off with a
flashback to one camper, Thalia,
sacrificing her life by holding off
a Cyclops attack. Father god Zeus
then creates a tree out of Thalia’s
body, which emanates an invisible barrier that protects Camp
Half-Blood.
Then one fine happy-camper
day, a mechanical bull (don’t ask)
breaks the barrier and snorts
around the camp, attempting to
gore campers.
Our hero, Percy, “spawn” of sea
god Poseidon, looks like the young
Christian Slater.
He has a trusty sidekick, an
African-American faun named
Grover – horns, cloven hoofs,
shortish Afro. (Fauns also come
in Caucasian, by the way.)
They go on an adventure to find
the Golden Fleece, which will heal
the tree and revive the barrier.
They’re accompanied by Percy’s uncool half-brother Tyson; a
socially inept, dread-locked, golden-hearted, hippieish Cyclops. (Is
that an army jacket he’s wearing?)
Also joining them is the beautiful but prejudiced (against
Cyclops) Annabeth, demigod
daughter of Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom. She inherited all
that wisdom but still uses an iPad.
And they’re going to have some
competition from the egotistical,
über-brat child of war-god Ares,
Clarisse.
They ride a hippocampus! (It’s
a horse-mermaid-fish). They do
battle on an awesome yacht!
They get sucked down the giant
maw of “Charybdis”, a classic
Greek sea monster.
They end up in its stomach,
which, obviously unbeknown
to Homer (Homer wrote The
Odyssey) now also doubles as the
Bermuda Triangle.
They shoot holes in Charybdis’s
stomach with a big gun from a
1940s destroyer that got sucked
into the Triangle!
This gets them to Polyphemus’s
place; he’s the huge Cyclops who
once tried to munch Odysseus.
He’s got the Golden Fleece. He’s
voiced by Ron Pearlman.
Polyphemus lives on Coney
Island. That’s not its real name, but
his island is an amusement park.
Yep. It’s got a rollercoaster, Tilt-a-
Whirl, and, um, SpaceMountain.
Are we getting a sense of the
overwhelming bad-taste mash-upness here yet? The kit-and-caboodle ransacking sellout geared to
drain your kiddie dollars?
It’s like a city dump – you can
find anything in there. But would
you want to?
In the highly regarded Rudolf
Steiner School curriculum, Greek
mythology is taught in the 5th
grade in all its solemn, pure pageantry.
Pictures are painted, poems
from the Greek classics are
learned by heart, costumes are
made, and plays performed. That’s
good stuff.
Can we find anything in “Percy”
to ameliorate the mash-up tacki- … cheap and marketable … mimics
ness? Are there lessons for the
its immediate predecessor with no
kiddies to learn? Bravery and self- regard to ethics; it “offers instanlessness are good.
taneous emotional gratification”.
Model-y Annabeth overcomes
C’mon Hollywood, give the kids
her Cyclops prejudice. Clarisse
some purity so they can regain
learns to play well with others. some morals and some ideas
That’s pretty much it.
about how to purify the mashedWhat’s the wanton ransacking
up, kitschy, apocalyptic world we
of myths, the sullying of ancient
created for them!
Well, that was some admittedly
Grecian aesthetics with modern
Dude-iPad-Whatever culture, and
overly serious self-righteous
the unashamed ripping off of the
wind-baggery. It’s just a kids’ film,
superior “Harry Potter” series
for goodness’ sake – why’s this
called? Kitsch.
reviewer getting so excited? Well,
Wikipedia defines it: “Kitsch
we care, folks!
is a style of mass-produced art
But never mind, there are worse
or design using cultural icons … things you could take your kids
unsubstantial or gaudy works … to – like “Saw VIII” for instance.
calculated to have popular appeal
Plenty of people actually drag
QROPS
(L–R) Tyson (Douglas Smith),
Clarisse (Leven Rambin), Grover
(Brandon T. Jackson), Annabeth
(Alexandra Daddario) and Percy
(Logan Lerman) are shocked by
their latest discovery.
small children to that (expletive
deleted).
Children will probably enjoy
“Percy”. It’ll be a reasonably fun
outing. A review of 3.5 stars for
kids and 1.5 for parents equals:
The movie is also available in
3D from 15 August in Hong Kong.
Your Kids are Explorers. Bookazine is their expedition.
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