Director John Moore Set To Helm THE ENGLISHMAN

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Foresight Unlimited and Envision Entertainment have come aboard to produce and finance THE ENGLISHMAN.

Director John Moore (A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, BEHIND ENEMY LINES) is attached to helm the film from a screenplay written by William Wisher (TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY). Foresight Unlimited will also be handling worldwide sales for the film.

Mark Damon will produce the $30M action film alongside James Gibb, Benedict Carver, Tim Peternel, and Moore.

THE ENGLISHMAN was developed by London-based Derby Street Films. Derby Street’s Nicola Horlick and Rachel Green are executive producing, together with Shaun Redick, Ray Mansfield, Ash Shah, Chris Hanley, Peter Veverka, and Foresight’s President, Tamara Birkemoe. Envision Entertainment’s Stepan Martirosyan, Vitaly Grigoriants, and Remington Chase will also be executive producers on the film.

Set to shoot in South Africa early next year, THE ENGLISHMAN is a true story based on the book “Once a Pilgrim” by Will Scully. It unfolds in real time as Scully, an ex-SAS officer turned mercenary, gets caught up in a military coup in Africa. Trapped in a hotel together with thousands of innocent civilians and completely surrounded by hostile rebels, he single-handedly takes on the enemy until he can get all the civilians safely evacuated.

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THE ENGLISHMAN represents the fifth collaboration between Foresight and the Envision partners, Stepan Martirosyan, Vitaly Grigoriants, and Remington Chase. In addition to the upcoming LONE SURVIVOR, directed by Peter Berg, and also starring Mark Wahlberg, and set to release in December this year by Universal, they are preparing the upcoming SPINNING GOLD, starring Justin Timberlake, which is set to go early next year. The two companies have also just completed production on Castle Rock’s, AND SO IT GOES, helmed by Rob Reiner, and starring Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton.

“We are delighted to be teaming up with Derby Street Films to bring this amazing true story based on Will Scully’s book to a worldwide movie audience,” commented both Damon and Martirosyan.

“THE ENGLISHMAN is one of those rare stories, the details and circumstance of which are so bizarre and mesmerizing, it created a compulsion in us to tell it,” said Moore. “Bill Wisher and I are delighted to be in business with Derby Street and Foresight on this film: they see what we see, they want the movie to be all it can be.”

“Will Scully’s story is extraordinary and it’s very exciting to have John Moore on board as director,” said Horlick. “This is exactly the type of commercial movie that Derby Street Films plans to keep developing for the big screen.”

Moore made his directorial debut with 20th Century Fox’s action adventure BEHIND ENEMY LINES, starring Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman. He continued to collaborate with the studio on films that include THE OMEN, MAX PAYNE and A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, which earned over $300 million worldwide.

Wisher has collaborated frequently with Moore. His credits include: TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, JUDGE DREDD, EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING and DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST.

With casting underway, Tricia Wood is onboard as the casting agent for the film.

Watch The Terrifying New Clip From YOU’RE NEXT

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Lionsgate has just released a brand new, chilling clip for the horror film of the summer, YOU’RE NEXT.

The film reunites the team behind serial-killer thriller A Horrible Way to Die, including director/editor Adam Wingard and writer/producer Simon Barrett.

See the film at an advanced screening in your town! To RSVP –  http://www.YoureNextScreenings.com 

The filmmakers hope audiences will feel like they’re “living in the moment” when watching YOU’RE NEXT. That, and take a little bit of the story home with them. “When you’re making a good horror movie, the goal is, in some ways, to deliberately put things in the film that people have to think about when they’re alone later,” Barrett says. “It’s like putting a character under a bed so that when you’re lying in bed at night you’re like, ‘Oh wait,’ and you think about the movie while saying to yourself, ‘I should recommend that to my friends. That was a scary movie.’”

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Lionsgate’s YOU’RE NEXT takes one of the most terrifying film genres, the home-invasion movie, and turns it on its head – adding dimension, drama, and bone-chilling realism to one of life’s most universal fears.

The story follows an upper-class family, the Davisons, who are as rich as they are estranged. In an earnest attempt to bring everyone back together, Aubrey and Paul Davison decide to celebrate their wedding anniversary by inviting their four children and their significant others to a family reunion at their remote and slightly rundown weekend estate.

At first it seems like decades-old sibling rivalries will derail any hope of reconciliation. But that quickly, and very abruptly, becomes the least of the Davisons’ concerns when their home comes under siege by a mask-wearing team of crossbow-bearing assailants. The family has no idea who’s attacking them, why they’re under attack, or if the attackers are inside or outside the cavernous, creaking house. All they know for certain is that nobody is safe.

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A non-stop, edge-of-your-seat, home-invasion bloodbath, YOU’RE NEXT stars Sharni Vinson, Nicholas Tucci, Wendy Glenn, AJ Bowen, Joe Swanberg, Margaret Laney, Amy Seimetz, Ti West,  and Rob Moran,  along with scream queen Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator), who returns for to the big screen for the first time in seven years as matriarch Aubrey Davison.

Arm yourself for the clever and absolutely frightening horror, full of unexpected twists, that will keep you up at night!

YOU’RE NEXT will be in theaters everywhere August 23, 2013.

Official Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/yourenextthemovie
Official Twitter Page: www.twitter.com/lionsgatehorror

BLUE JASMINE – The Review

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After a side trip to Spain for VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, back to New York for WHATEVER WORKS, to London for YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER, France for MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and Italy for FROM ROME WITH LOVE, Woody lands in San Francisco (with some Manhattan-set  flashback) for his latest, the terrific drama BLUE JASMINE.  Armed with a script full of memorable characters, Allen’s portrait of one woman’s unhinged fall from privilege and prosperity to depression and madness is anchored by a devastating lead performance by Kate Blanchett.

Jasmine (Blanchett) used to have it all, an upscale life of luxury and good times in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard. She’s suddenly penniless, blind-sided by the white collar financial crimes of her late husband Hal (Alec Baldwin in flashback), whose sleazy dealings she always turned a blind eye to. We first meet Jasmine on a plane, baring her soul to an annoyed fellow traveler, something she’ll do to strangers throughout the film. She lands in San Francisco armed with her designer suitcases at the doorstep of her working-class sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins).  Despite Hal having squandered Ginger and her first husband Auggie’s (Andrew Dice Clay) desperately-needed lottery winnings, she offers Jasmine a place to stay. The sisters neither look nor act alike, both having been adopted by the same parents. Ginger has two sons from a first marriage to Auggie and a current fiancé Chili (Bobby Cannavale), a greasy goomba mechanic who sees right through Jasmine, who in turn continually refers to him as a ‘loser. Jasmine is a depressed woman who is unaccustomed to the lower class, living with noisy kids, and putting up with visits from Chili and his rough-edged pals. She goes to work as a receptionist for a lecherous dentist (Michael Stuhlbarg) and enrolls in a class to learn how to operate a computer so she can take an interior decorating license online. A chance meeting with a wealthy widowed diplomat (Peter Sarsgaard) looks like her ticket back to the privileged life she once know, if she can only keep her past from catching up with her.

Woody Allen has been cranking out a movie annually as long as I can remember and every few years critics latch on to his latest work and declare it his “best in years”.  BLUE JASMINE really is. Allen deals here, as he does in most of his serious work, in class hatred, uncomfortable confrontations, and dysfunctional family conflict, but it lacks the heavy, Bergman-inspired gravity of some of Allen’s previous dramas like INTERIORS, SEPTEMBER, or ANOTHER WOMAN.  The overheated premise proves perfect for Allen’s brand of stylized, poetic language. Even the uncouth Auggie and Chili naturally speak dialogue that sounds both composed and spontaneous. There are real dark turns in the film too, a mystery that depends upon the audience’s gradual discovery of what exactly happened to Hal.

Miss Blanchett is a riveting image, not just for the things she says but for the ravaged beauty and sadness she allows the camera to find in her face and clothes-horse figure. Constantly throwing back Xanax and martinis to cope, Blanchett performs emotional highs and lows, often within the same scene and her performance is really something to see. Jasmine is selfish and cruel and entitled yet the actress somehow generates a great deal of sympathy and the audience wants for her to find happiness. It’s a performance people will be talking about for a long time. It’s Blanchett’s show but there are so many good supporting performances in this film. Sally Hawkins is admirably down-to-earth as Ginger, who’s given a lot of screen time. Peter Sarsgaard scores as a too-good-to-be-true diplomat who may be the answer to Jasmine’s dreams as does Louis C.K. as  Al, who might be Ginger’s step up from Chili. Andrew Dice Clay imbues Auggie with such humanity and sympathy that I can’t believe this is the same guy who was at the top of the stand-up game twenty years ago for reciting vulgar nursery rhymes. Only Michael Stuhlbarg as the dentist doesn’t fit so neatly into the puzzle. Until he makes his awkward advances, I didn’t understand why Jasmine wasn’t nicer to him.

Allen has made so many comedies that it is easy to insist that he make nothing else. Actually, he is as acute an author of serious dialogue as anyone now making films, and in BLUE JASMINE most of the real action goes on in his words as well as the shattering performance by Ms Blanchett. By turns witty, surprising, and heartbreaking, BLUE JASMINE is Woody Allen at the very top of his form and the best film I’ve seen this year.

5 of 5 Stars

BLUE JASMINE opens in St. Louis Friday, August 9th at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Theater

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CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL Coming To A Theater Near You

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Alcon Entertainment (“The Blind Side,” “Dolphin Tale,” “P.S. I Love You”) has acquired film and television rights to the famed Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Alcon is set to finance and produce a major feature film that shares the brand’s name, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”

Writer Brandon Camp (“Love Happens”) will write the screenplay, which is inspired by a variety of characters and stories from the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series. Warner Bros will release via Alcon’s output deal.

Originally created by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen in 1993, Chicken Soup for the Soul has evolved into a worldwide multi-channel brand now stewarded by publisher Amy Newmark and expanded by veteran CEO Bill Rouhana.

Alcon’s next film “Prisoners,” is a dramatic film about abduction directed by Denis Villeneuve starring Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhall, Viola Davis, Melissa Leo, Terrance Howard and Paul Dano. It will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and be released wide via Alcon’s output deal with Warner Bros. on September 20, 2013. They recently wrapped production on Wally Pfister’s directorial debut “Transcendence” starring Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Rebecca Hall and Morgan Freeman among others.

Currently, Alcon is working with Ridley Scott and Hampton Fancher on developing a follow up to the iconic science fiction thriller “Blade Runner,” to which they acquired all-inclusive franchise rights. The filmmakers will reveal only that the new story will take place some years after the first film concluded. Scott will direct. Fancher will write.

Watch The New Trailer For George Clooney’s THE MONUMENTS MEN

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In theaters on December 18, here’s the first trailer for George Clooney’s THE MONUMENTS MEN.

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, THE MONUMENTS MEN is a dramatic thriller focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners.

It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys – seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 – possibly hope to succeed?  But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements.

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From director George Clooney, the film stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett.  The screenplay is by George Clooney & Grant Heslov, based on the book by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Produced by Grant Heslov and George Clooney, THE MONUMENTS MEN is their first production since winning the Academy Award for Best Picture for their work on ARGO.

Filming took place in Germany and the United Kingdom. Clooney’s crew on THE MONUMENTS MEN included director of photography Phedon Papamichael, ASC, Oscar®-nominated production designer Jim Bissell, Academy Award®-winning editor Stephen Mirrione, A.C.E., costume designer Louise Frogley, and five-time Oscar® nominated composer Alexandre Desplat.

Sony Pictures will release the film domestically, with Twentieth Century Fox handling international territories.

See more images from the movie in USA Today’s preview HERE.

Check out the book’s Facebook and Twitter pages: https://www.facebook.com/TheMonumentsMen

https://twitter.com/MonumentsMen

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Win A Pass To The Advance Screening Of LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER In St. Louis

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LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER is set against the tumultuous political backdrop of 20th century America. Academy Award® nominated director Lee Daniels’ (PRECIOUS) epic drama tells the story of fictional White House butler Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker), who serves during seven presidential administrations between 1957 and 1986. The film is inspired by Wil Haygood’s 2008 Washington Post article “A Butler Well Served by This Election” which chronicled the real life of former White House butler Eugene Allen. The film begins in 1926 and follows a young Cecil as he escapes the tyranny of the fiercely segregated South in search of a better life.

Along his arduous journey to manhood Cecil learns invaluable skills that ultimately lead to an opportunity of a lifetime: a job as a butler at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. There, Cecil becomes a firsthand witness to history and the inner workings of the Oval Office as the civil rights movement unfolds. At home, his loving wife Gloria (Oprah Winfrey) raises their two sons, and the family benefits from a comfortable middle-class existence enabled by Cecil’s White House position.

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But Cecil’s commitment to his “First Family” fosters tensions at home, alienating Gloria and creating conflict with his anti-establishment son (David Oyelowo). Through the eyes and emotions of the Gaines family, Daniels’ film follows the changing tides of American politics and race relations; from the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, to the Freedom Riders and Black Panther movements, to the war in Vietnam and the Watergate scandal, Cecil experiences the effects of these events as both an insider and a family man.

With an incredible supporting cast that includes Yaya Alafia, Mariah Carey, John Cusack, Jane Fonda, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Terrence Howard, Elijah Kelley, Minka Kelly, Lenny Kravitz, James Marsden, Alex Pettyfer, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Rickman, Liev Schreiber and Robin Williams, LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER is a story about the resilience of one man, the growth of a nation, and the power of family.

The film will be in theaters August 16.

The Weinstein Company and WAMG invite you to enter for your chance to receive a pass (Good for 2) to the advance screening of LEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER on August 13th at 7PM in St. Louis.

Answer the following:

Forest Whitaker won a Best Actor Oscar for which 2006 movie? Plus name the person he portrayed.

OFFICIAL RULES:

1. YOU MUST BE IN THE ST. LOUIS AREA THE DAY OF THE SCREENING.

2. ENTER YOUR NAME AND ANSWER IN OUR COMMENTS SECTION BELOW.

3. YOU MUST SUBMIT THE CORRECT ANSWER TO OUR QUESTION ABOVE TO WIN. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY.

This film has been rated PG-13.

Website – http://leedanielsthebutlermovie.com 
Facebook – https://facebook.com/leedanielsthebutler
Twitter – http://twitter.com/weinsteinfilms

THE BUTLER

Photos: Anne Marie Fox © 2013 The Weinstein Company. All Rights Reserved.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 Pop-Up Video

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Brent (Andy Samberg), Sam (Anna Faris), Flint (Bill Hader), Steve the Monkey (Neil Patrick Harris), and Earl (Terry Crews) star in CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2. In July the new trailer came online and yesterday Sony Pictures Animation transformed it into a Fun Facts, pop-up video. Check em both out below.

The sequel picks up where Peter Lord’s and Chris Miller’s 2009 film left off and is filled with fruit cockatiels, bananostriches, watermelophants and cucumbirds.

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Inventor Flint Lockwood’s genius is finally being recognized as he’s invited by his idol Chester V to join The Live Corp Company, where the best and brightest inventors in the world create technologies for the betterment of mankind. Chester’s right-hand-gal – and one of his greatest inventions – is Barb (a highly evolved orangutan with a human brain, who is also devious, manipulative and likes to wear lipstick.

It’s always been Flint’s dream to be recognized as a great inventor, but everything changes when he discovers that his most infamous machine (which turns water into food) is still operating and is now creating food-animal hybrids – “foodimals!” With the fate of humanity in his hands, Chester sends Flint and his friends on a dangerously delicious mission, battling hungry tacodiles, shrimpanzees, apple pie-thons, double bacon cheespiders and other food creatures to save the world again!

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The film is based upon characters from the book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – written by Judi Barrett and illustrated by Ron Barrett. Directed by Cody Cameron & Kris Pearn, CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 will be in theaters September 27, 2013.

http://www.cloudy-movie.com/

“Like” on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CloudyMovie

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CloudyMovie

https://twitter.com/SonyAnimation   #Cloudy2 

Photos: © 2013 Sony Pictures Animation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS New Trailer

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Watch the new trailer for CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. The film will premiere at the New York Film Festival’s opening gala.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is director Paul Greengrass’s multi-layered examination of the 2009 hijacking of the U.S. container ship Maersk Alabama by a crew of Somali pirates. It is – through Greengrass’s distinctive lens – simultaneously a pulse-pounding thriller and a complex portrait of the myriad effects of globalization.

The film focuses on the relationship between the Alabama’s commanding officer, Captain Richard Phillips (two time Academy Award® winner Tom Hanks), and his Somali counterpart, Muse (Barkhad Abdi). Set on an incontrovertible collision course off the coast of Somalia, both men will find themselves paying the human toll for economic forces outside of their control.

Also featuring Catherine Keener, CAPTAIN PHILLIPS is directed by Academy Award® nominee Paul Greengrass, from a screenplay by Billy Ray based upon the book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty. The film is produced by Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, and Michael De Luca.

http://www.captainphillipsmovie.com/site/

https://www.facebook.com/CaptainPhillipsMovie

https://twitter.com/captainphillips

The Weinstein Company Brings Official Site For SALINGER Online

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The Weinstein Company has officially launched the new website for SALINGER – www.salingerfilm.com. Through the use of exclusive video, images, news clips, and other memorabilia, the site subtly gives clues and hints to what happened to J.D. Salinger.

Users can explore and discover hidden content for themselves. The site includes two famous magazine covers featuring Salinger – TIME Magazine (1961) and ESQUIRE Magazine (1997) – as well as the only photo ever seen of Salinger on his bed, in his bedroom.

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The site will be continually updated with exclusive content leading up to the theatrical release on September 6, 2013.

Visit www.salingerfilm.com to discover WHAT HAPPENED TO J.D. SALINGER.

SALINGER features interviews with 150 subjects including Salinger’s friends and colleagues who have never spoken on the record before as well as film footage, photographs and other material that has never been seen. Additionally, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Edward Norton, John Cusack, Danny DeVito, John Guare, Martin Sheen, David Milch, Robert Towne, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Gore Vidal and Pulitzer Prize winners A. Scott Berg and Elizabeth Frank talk about Salinger’s influence on their lives, their work and the broader culture.

The film is the first work to get beyond the Catcher in the Rye author’s meticulously built up wall: his childhood, painstaking work methods, marriages, private world and the secrets he left behind after his death in 2010.

In 2014 on PBS, the film will be American Masters 200th episode. Click here for more info:   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/jd-salinger/film-salinger/2642/

Follow the film on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/SecretSalinger

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS – The Review

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Seems like only yesterday we were saying goodbye to another film series based on a series of young adult novels when the vampires and werewolves from the “Twilight” saga bid adieu to the multiplexes. Well, before Katniss and crew arrive for another “Hunger Games” survival contest, and prior to a new series based on the “Divergent” books begins, we’re getting another movie adventure with Percy Jackson. You might ask, “Who?”.  It’s been all of three years since movie audiences were introduced to him in PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF in 2010, so to the surprise of some (including Entertainment Weekly that wondered why this was getting a sequel) here comes PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS. Having a YA literary degree doesn’t guarantee you second film, as the fans of “The Golden Compass” and “Cirque du Freak” books found out. So, will we get to visit young Mr. J and his pals at the cinemas over the next few years? We’ll just have to see how this one fares…

The opening moments try to get us up to speed (a good thing, since I’ve never read the books and missed the first flick). Percy and his pals are “demigods”, the offspring of unions between the classic ancient Greek gods of mythology and humans. They live safely and secretly on an island camp. In a flashback we see a group of titans (murderous giant monster men) chasing a quartet of pre-teen demigods as they attempt to get back to the camp entrance. One of the kids gives her life in order for the others to live. As she is about to die, the gods transform her into a huge magical tree which emits a force field that prevents any attackers from entering the camp. In the present day, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is pitted against the boastful, competitive Claresse (Levin Rambin) in a contest of mental and physical skills presided over by the camp’s adults Mr. D (Stanley Tucci) and a centaur, Chiron (Anthony Head) while Percy’s pals Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) and a faun, Grover (Brandon T Jackson), cheer him on. Later the adults are surprised when an unkown demigod waltzes into camp. Turns out he is a son of Poseidon just like Percy. But since his mother was a water nymph, Tyson (Douglas Smith) is a cyclops. Everyone is even more shocked when a vicious robotic, fire-shooting bull bursts through the protective shield. Turns out that the magic tree is dying and the only cure is the mythical golden fleece. While Clarisse begins an official quest, Percy and his pals Annabeth, Grover, and half-brother Tyson head out on their own before an old enemy can snatch up the fleece and bring the father of the gods Kronos back to life and destroys everyone.

Fresh off his terrific lead performance in THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, Lerman is a confident screen hero with the right touch of vulnerability. He seems genuinely worried when facing off against towering menaces while also feeling dejected when his pop Poseidon never answers his call. Jackson is a great comic relief as is Smith, who brings a real sweetness to the lanky, good-natured, one-eyed innocent. Rambin and Daddario bring an almost “Betty and Veronica” vibe to their roles as the ladies in Percy’s life. Annabeth is smitten with him, while Claresse’s contemptuous sneers try to mask her attraction. As energetic as the young actors are, they can’t quite match the charms of some the screen veterans here. Wonderful to see Anthony Head back in the role of the wise mentor to the kids (a comfortable fit after being Buffy Summers’s faithful “watcher” Giles for seven TV seasons). Tucci is delightful as the absent-minded, former party god Mr.D (love his frustrated look as he tries in vain to enjoy a goblet of wine). But the man most guilty of stealing scenes is repeat offender Nathan Fillion (just as he did in the recent MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING) in his far too brief cameo as the working stiff Hermes. He’s even given a throw-away joke that references a beloved old TV show cancelled too soon. Get this guy another feature film quick!

But all the efforts of the talented cast can’t disguise the film’s main problem. As much as the recent flop RIPD owed much to MEN IN BLACK, Percy Jackson owes far too much to the hero of another franchise (recently concluded) based on a YA book series: Harry Potter! Instead of the school we’re got an island camp. Both heroes have a foretold destiny. Harry’s got a magic wand while Percy has a nifty retractable sword. We can practically check things off a list, right down to the numerous, weightless CGI beasties (a scorpion-wolf, whatever!). A near-sighted  hungry giant cyclops is a bit of fun, but he seems to have wondered in from a Hobbit flick. Director Thor Freudenthal just can’t give the film a consistent pace. Plot, then action, then explaining, then plot, then action just repeats in an endless loop. If it looks as though one character is doomed, we know that some bit of magic or god intervention will set all things right once more so everyone can be back for the next one in the series. There is a nifty graphic animated sequence that tells us the origins of the gods and the fleece, but it’s not enough to get us past this formulaic, derivative story. The 3D’s pretty needless, no matter how many water drops are “left” on the camera lens during the ocean scenes. Sorry Percy, but your demigods are not nearly as entertaining as the Hogwarts Class of 2011.

2 Out of 5 Stars

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