Thursday, July 24, 2014

Sea of Monsters Movie and Titan's Curse Graphic Novel

syndetics-lcSummer greetings, everyone, from Charlotte's # 1 Percy Jackson fan. I LOVE the Percy Jackson books. Do you hear me? I don't just like the Percy Jackson books; I LOVE them. LOVE THEM!! Got that? I'm such a fan that you see me here at last year's Greek festival in my Camp Half-Blood t-shirt--given to me by Mr. Riordan! So I was happy to finally get hold of a dvd copy of The Sea of Monsters, the second Percy Jackson movie. Yes, i know it came out last August, but I was busy that summer and missed it at the theatres. Anyway, I enjoyed it a whole lot and wanted to recoomend it to all you reader guys. In fact, I enjoyed it much, much more than The Lightning Thief movie, which seemed to be thrown together in a hurry and didn't catch the spirit of the PJ books. This one did--mostly. There was lots of action, of course, as well as plenty of monsters, fights with monsters, narrow escapes from bad guys--all the things that make a great GUY movie. But this one also had the wacky humor of the PJ books, which was missing from the first movie. Just watch the scenes with the "cab drivers" or the encounter with Hermes. Or the Confederate "zombies." And the effects are incredible! Witness the scenes inside Charybdis or the ride on the hippocampus. Of course, there were a few flaws--Clarice was in this one (she wasn't in The Lightning Thief movie) but she didn't look at all as she is described in the books and she wasn't nearly mean enough. Plus, if I remember correctly, there were big departures from the book near the end of the movie. All in all, however, this was a very fun movie and you'll get a kick out of it if you haven't already seen it. Or, even if you have, I bet you'll enjoy it the second time. The library system has plenty of copies, although it's relatively new, which makes it a Rental movie that costs $2.00 to check out--but I'm sure you have that money from your allowance and/or the work you do at home, right?

syndetics-lcThe day after I saw the movie, I found a copy of The Titan's Curse graphic novel here at the Myers Park library (we didn't have a copy of the Sea of Monsters gn that day), so I checked it out and had the same reaction that I had to the Sea of Monsters movie. In other words, I liked it a bunch and found to be much, much better than The Lightning Thief graphic novel. That one was lame. The artwork wasn't that good--the characters looked like badly-made Play-Doh models--and the story was hard to follow. The artwork's ten times better in this one and the gn catches the feel of the book--mostly. The story can still be a little hard to follow and Atlas doesn't look nearly big and threatening enough. But, as with the movie, it was a lot of fun and you guys would definitely enjoy it. The Charlotte Mecklenburg library system has plenty of copies--one of which is still here at the Myers Park library. Come in, check it out and give me a high five!

BTW, the fifth and final book in The Lost Hero series, The Blood of Olympus, is scheduled to come out on October 7. I've reserved a copy from the library already! Get your library cards out and you could do the same! Can't wait!!! And be sure to check out Myth and Mystery, Mr. Riordan's blog, to keep current with info about this terrific books.

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