Multiple gangsters and assassins with varying motives are aboard the same shinkansen. Too-pleased-with-itself slapstick thriller, adapted from the novel Maria Beetle by Kotaro Isaka. Some early stuff works, but there’s little control over the premise, so it falls apart despite committed work from star Brad Pitt and others. A hack approach to Japan doesn’t help.
Here’s the trailer.
Percy and friends have to find the Golden Fleece so they can save their home. Cut-price sequel (no returning guest stars) with join-the-dots plotting as before, this time taking elements from the first two Indiana Jones movies as well as the Rick Riordan source books and wider Greek myth. Not very good; Part 3 (The Titan’s Curse) was never made.
A New York teen finds he is Poseidon’s son, and is wanted by the Gods. Straightforward tick-box fantasy quest from the bestselling Rick Riordan books. Slumming starry character actors help, but aping of the same director’s Harry Potter formula reinforces the schematic way the monomyth is handled here. A sequel followed.
![Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief [AKA Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief] (2010, dir. Chris Columbus)](https://255review.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/pjlf-poster.jpg?w=459)
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