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There's not much at stake in the 'Sea of Monsters'

Any thoughts that a second Percy Jackson and the Olympians film would drag Rick Riordan's "Greek Godchildren" franchise out of the shadow of Harry Potter are dashed the moment Percy and his "half-blood" friends pile into a supernatural taxi in Sea of Monsters.

Any thoughts that a second Percy Jackson and the Olympians film would drag Rick Riordan's "Greek Godchildren" franchise out of the shadow of Harry Potter are dashed the moment Percy and his "half-blood" friends pile into a supernatural taxi in

Sea of Monsters

.

The cab may be driven by the three haggling, wisecracking Graeae of Greek myth - blind women with one eye among them - but it's a pure Potter picture moment. And with every creature that turns up, which one of these half-human sons and daughters of Poseidon or Athena then identifies - "Look, it's a Hippocampi!" "Oh no! It's a Charybdis!" - the comparisons to Harry & Co. grows.

But Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel to The Lightning Thief, is never less than a workmanlike, likable substitute. Good effects, an adequate young cast (Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, and Brandon T. Jackson return), and the amusing presence of Stanley Tucci and Nathan Fillion lift this otherwise warmed-over myth mush movie.

The prologue recalls a death years ago at Camp Half-Blood, the woodsy Hogwarts of this mythic world. The brave demi-god who sacrificed herself lives on as a magical tree that guards the camp from attack. But someone has poisoned the tree.

Percy (Lerman), the kid who saved Olympus last time around, isn't the first choice to save it now. He's outclassed by the sporty, trash-talking Clarisse (Leven Rambin). Clarisse is given the job of fetching a cure for the tree, the Golden Fleece. But Percy, Annabeth (Daddario), and the Satyr Grover (Jackson) sneak off on their own.

The movie starts out promisingly with the comical introduction of camp guru "Mr. D.", Dionysus, Greek god of wine. Stanley Tucci is hilarious as a god who is being punished by Zeus so every vintage bottle he opens turns to water in his glass.

Always amusing Nathan Fillion shows up as Hermes, father of villainous Luke (Jake Abel), who is back and trying to end the world. Again. Not to worry, says Hermes. "Rome wasn't built in a day. Take it from me, I was there."

That gets at the film's central failing: There's no life-and-death weight to it, no "Cedric Diggory's dead and we can't bring him back" moment aside from the opening tree-girl flashback. Our heroes' quest is generic in the extreme. The fights/escapes all lack any sense of peril. Nothing seems to be at stake.