The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

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.

Since the success of films like Harry Potter and Twilight, film studios have been looking for the next young adult book series to adapt. With five books already out and a sixth on the way, The Mortal Instruments is latest series to diving into a cinematic adaptation, being more fantasy, than supernatural romance.

Clary Fray (Lily Collins) is a seemingly normal New York teenager, who lives with her artistic single mother, Jocelyn (Lena Headey). Her best friend, Simon (Richard Sheehan), has a crush for the young woman, but she sees him more as a brother. Clary leads a normal life, but starts to draw a strange symbol, that leads to changes in her life. She begins to see it everywhere, leading her and Simon to a nightclub where she sees people, no one else can. Soon, Clary's mother is kidnapped and her only ally is Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), a Shadowhunter, a half-angel, half- human creature, who hunts demons. Clary is thrust into a strange world of demons, vampires, witches, warlocks and werewolves and has to open up her own suppressed memories as an evil Shadowhunter. Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is looking for the lost Mortal Cup that can create more Shadowhunters.

To get the Twilight comparisons out of the way, yes there is a love triangle and a teenage girl has a romance with a supernatural creature. But, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones borrows much more from the Harry Potter, having a world within world, many mystical creatures, having a term to describe humans and focuses on a young character who could be more powerful then she realises and discovers her real past. The character of Alec (Kevin Zegers) is the Rosalie of the film, having animosity to our major character.

Continuing with Twilight comparisons, Clary is dependence on the other characters, but that is more due to the fact she is in a strange world and the Shadowhunters are much more experience. But, Clary is still resourceful, asks the right questions and is a go-getter who wants to get stuck in with the adventure.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is a standard fantasy adventure that, as already mentioned, borrows highly from Harry Potter. This is a film that has many predictable plot points, that we've seen many times before. This is a film that does follow The Hero With A Thousand Faces formula, but also makes you dive head first into its world and mythology, where other series would be much more gradual when bringing you into their worlds.

Harald Zwart of Agent Cody Banks and The Karate Kid (2010) fame took on the directing duties and he makes a darker film to his previous efforts. Zwart brings in Gothic visuals throughout the film, from the use of a catacomb that is run by creatures with sewed up mouths and the Shadowhunter's being like a church: but Institute's interior looks very much like Hogwarts. There are some gruesome moments (even for the PG-13 rating) involving the demon dog and the extra limbs demons can grow. But despite all this, death is kept to a minimum.

While The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones does have Judo-Christian iconography with its use of angel statutes and paintings, this is a film that actually side-steps being be a Christian, saying all religions are valid and avoids any mention of God or the afterlife.

The acting for the most part is decent enough, though the dialogue is predictable and a little clichéd at times. We do get to see Clary transform from a regular teenager to a Shadowhunter wearing a short dresses, a leather jacket and thigh high boots. While Campbell Bower brings a sardonic wit to Jace and there is strange aspect that all the Shadowhunters speak with English accents whilst the werewolves are Irish. Actors like Headey and Jared Harris do offer a little gravitas to proceedings but there are really extended cameos with the young actors being front and centre.

Zwart did show his action credentials when he directed The Karate Kid; but he seem to regress for his follow up film. The action sequences are for the most part fairly bland, typical fare. But Jemima West's Isabelle has some moments with a whip and looking really bad-ass when she has a flamethrower. Hell, give her a film.

The special effects are nothing to write home about. There are not bad, but due to the limited budget the digital looked obvious at times, particularly the werewolves. Yet, the demons near the end of the film does have a cool, glowing effort and have a similar look to Kronos' minions in Wrath of the Titans.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has been have a torrid time with mainstream critics, but in all honesty, it is a perfectly serviceable fantasy adventure that is better to the Twilight series it has been compared to and will please fans of the novels.

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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.

This movie was not bad. I never read the books so I can't compare, but I saw the TV series "Shadowhunters" first. I feel the TV series did more for the story than the movie. Especially when they were able to fit the whole book into seasons. The movie was rushed and so much left unclear.

Yes the they hit the bullet points, but I still felt lost. I think they left out major characters, they left out major storylines, they didn't work with the characters properly, and they changed the importance of many charters.

Another thing I'm not sure of, but noticed. It seemed they mixed various parts of the other books and put them in this movie. Not sure if they ever planned on doing the entire series of the books.

I do recommend watching the series "Shadowhunters", its well worth it.

I read this book before watching the film and i was apprehensive to see if they would get all the important things from the book into the film. I think they did a very good job to get it all in, in just over two hours.

Cast: I thought they cast this film perfectly and all the characters played there roles perfectly. My favourite character from the book and film is Jace as he was so witty and he was really witty in the film which is good.

Story line: The story in this film is all very cramped together as the book was quite big so i think the screenwriter done a good job fitting it all in the 2 hours.

Music: The music in this film was perfect and fitted in with the film perfectly.

overall i think this film was impressive but there was some things that they changed which makes me wonder how they will be changing the story line in the second film.

Worth a watch...

7/10