Film review: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters (PG)

The latest adventure featuring young demigod Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is very heavy going indeed.

Percy, an all-American kid who happens to be the son of Poseidon, embarks on an epic journey to find the Golden Fleece in the Sea of Monsters and thereby do a bit of tree surgery. (His sanctuary Camp Half Blood is facing environmental catastrophe and the Fleece is needed to help renew the vegetation.)

The attempts at combining Greek mythology with germ-filled American adolescence remain jarring in the extreme.

From the tin-pot monsters that fall apart when Percy finds their weak spot to the tokenistic use of 3D and the baffling plot, this is a film that grates on every level.

It doesn't help the dramatic tension that when characters are killed in one scene, they invariably seem to spring back to life in the next.