The Mortal Instruments: La Cité des ténèbres

I wanted to enjoy this movie, I really did. However a very annoying lead character coupled with a below average direction made it really difficult for me.

The story is the classical teen who discovers she has special powers. They probably are trying all of these movies with female leads as to attract the female audience to the productive teen fantasy movie segment. Yet, of course, the chick needs at least two guys fawning over her and protecting her until she finds out how awesome she really is. That's really lame. This year is the year of witches, all movies and series have to have one, this is one of those films.

Anyway, back to the story. Lena Headey is the mother of a freak again, married with a weirdo again, widowed again. The casting holes actors fall in these days are really specific, aren't they? The plot proceeds like a mix of Harry Potter finding he is a wizard and the Twilight love triangle ... err... angle. There is even a medieval castle in the middle of New York (that, of course, people cannot see).

Bad people are after the main character, of course, but one of them is Kevin Durand in a really tiny role. Give that guy a break, man, he is too cool for these evil henchman roles!

Since I watched Twilight and I watched Harry Potter and I can safely say I wasn't terribly impressed, but I enjoyed myself, it would have been expected to at least enjoy this film as well, but I couldn't. The love scenes are ridiculous, the fight scenes don't make sense, the magical scenes either (check out the one when they battle demons, she freezes them up, and then they try to move around them rather than just kill them like they would do just a few seconds later when the demons unfreeze) and some of the roles in the movie are really confusing, like the one of the great warlock that seems to know all, appear out of nowhere when you need him and everybody trusts him.

The acting wasn't bad, but the direction and individual scenes were clumsy and sometimes outright bad. I have no choice but to rate it a failure.

Wow i've never read the books on this film but what I stunning visual film this was, right from the start it throw you into a world of mystery that open up to a whole new world of beauty & darkness as the story is revealed. I will say tho this film might not be for everyone as it does come across as a Gothic teen feel to the film which is a cross between i'am number four & the seeker: dark is rising, but with a much better storyline & concept. I love the storyline & concept of this film, mundane , born human with immense power half angel/half human shadow hunters guardian of the light against the dark, this is what fantasy film's are all about. Lily Collins who plays Clary, wow she looking so beautiful in this film & a brilliantly done performance from her with her character as she really shows motion & believable character as she come to term with her destiny as a shadow hunter when she see things that go beyond reality.Like I said before this film is visually stunning with special effect & concept, the special effect on the face change was brilliant don't to show a dark horror tone to the demons as well as the beauty of the garden at midnight. The action scenes were fair there are a few moments where it does get a little slow but it acceptable as you don't fall asleep or get board of watch it because it does throw you into special scenes where things get interesting. I also love the back story of the angel warrior Azazel who gave his own blood to create the mundane to protect the world from demons. Like I said before a well this film won't be for everyone if you like the dark fantasy films this film you will probably like, but if not your going to find this film is bad or sucks because it won't be your type of film. But it worth watching & making it a part of the DVD collection. Dislikes : There wasn't much in describing the demonic world other than that there are people that have been taken over by demons that was the only thing I kind of felt should of gone more in depth with since the concept of the film is about a war between the light & dark but if you can over see this then you find this film brilliantly done.

I liked the book, but was quite disappointed with this adaptation.

First of all they just changed so much about it. Secondly, they added in lots of cheesy lines. And the whole film ended up with this twilight-esque vibe about it. I just found myself rolling my eyes or snorting a number of times throughout the film. Magnus Bane who is so cool in the book, ends being really watered down and uninteresting. I don't know if it was the direction, the actor or a combination of both, but he came off really flat. Also Lily Collins is not really much of an actress. She's not terrible, but she needs help. I also felt like they glossed over details. I wanted them to take a bit more time explaining things better.

I still like the overall story and plot. And Robert Sheehan is fantastic. I definitely want to see more of his work. I also enjoyed the action scenes and the special effects.

So even though there were flaws, I still managed to enjoy myself. It was decent, but far from amazing.

Movie was fine and entertaining.

I'm not going to give lots of details about what happened in the movie but just wanted to comment about what a lot of other people had said about it.

It feels like much of the hate must be from people trying to just buck the trend or with some emotional spur of the moment thing going on lol. Some people gave it 1 star which... according to them... makes it one of the worst movies ever made (worse than Battlefield Earth, or Killing Spree?? lol), but there are a lot of 10 star ratings... (So it was as good as The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction etc??)... too which always makes you think they were people involved with the movie but then again maybe people rate them in on their expectations of the movie compared to what they actually get, rather than rating in comparison to other movies?

It had a budget of $60 million and box office was around $76 million most likely way down on what they though it would be but not exactly a big flop, yeah there was probably millions spent on promoting but they probably made up for that and more with DVD and BR sales and rentals, and looking through various sites, the critics reviews seem to be around average or just below and cinema goers reviews seem to be average to above average. At the time of typing this it has a 6.1 rating on IMDb which shows that most here think it is at least better than average.

This movie is about getting to know the characters, an intro into the series if you like, there will be loose ends because there will be at least one sequel. The next movie will be much the same plus developing the characters with a big finale or if there is a 3rd and final movie the big finale will be there, that is usually how it works. There will always be similarities and comparisons... (Twighlight, Harry Potter, Stargate, Underworld... whatever!)... to other movies when especially when they are in the same genre, it would be almost impossible to make the movie 100% unique.

As for always comparing movies with books people will nearly always prefer the 1st version of something they read, see, hear etc which most often than not is the original, whether it be a book, movie, TV series or music. Its pointless reading the book and then moaning that it is not as the same. Making it exactly the same... which is hard anyway across the two completely different formats... would be also pointless as once you have read or seen one then there would be no point reading or seeing the other and people would still moan because its the same.

I agree it was a little too long and also agree with someone who mentioned the film score, it does seem somewhat out of place, like it was taken from another movie plus a lot of scenes were too dark, not much point spending money on filming a scene that no-one can see, but over all it was fine and entertaining. :)

BTW Took me a while to recognise Robert Sheehan, he was funny in Misfits TV series. :)

I enjoyed this film although I'm in no ways its target audience. It's a teen film, primarily for chicks, but I'm having a cold and my wife isn't home, so perhaps I'm a little more sentimental than usual.

It starts off like any other coming of age yarn. Clary, our protagonist, is littering the house with drawings of her womb, a clear sign that she's on the verge of Growing Up. Luckily, she runs into the right people first, and they teach her what she needs to know about tattoos and black outfits with buckled boots, and all that other stuff that makes you cool and adult. A romance story is fired up right away as well, between Clary and this guy Jonathan with the cool sticky hair and silky British voice, and the two seem a little naive in that they don't pick up on each other's signals, but I guess that takes some life experience.

The story is very simple, utilizing all the expected elements of the genre, but does manage to keep them fairly fresh, and the plot has sufficient twists to stay interesting, although most of them have only minor impact on later turns of events. At some points it meanders a little and several scenes could have been cut out without affecting the plot at all. It would have suited the film to be a little bit shorter.

The characters are all exceptionally pretty people, and most of them have no character flaws either, yet it didn't become annoying like it very easily does in such cases. Clary is sympathetic enough for one to care about her, and it helps keeping you involved in the story despite the often predictable setup.

All in all, it had good entertainment value, and I think I only zoned out briefly a couple of times. Worth a watch, just don't expect anything from the Deep End of the pool.