Ever since the TWILIGHT series came into the scene a couple of years ago and made a lot of bank, many Hollywood studios have been buying up the rights to every young adult fantasy series out there in hoping that one will be the next huge success for them as well. While some have been really good (THE HUNGER GAMES, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES), while others not so much (THE HOST, I AM NUMBER FOUR). The latest film to be released from this trend is THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES, which is based on the first chapter in a popular book series by Cassandra Clare. So what did I think of the film? Read on and find out!
The film tells the story of a young teenager named Clary Fray (Lilly Collins) who one day discovers that she is a descendant of a long line people called Shadowhunters, a half-human/half-angel group of warriors who protect the world from many supernatural beings: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, monsters etc. At first she doesn’t want anything to do with them but when her mother Jocelyn (Lena Heady) has been kidnapped by former Shadowhunter Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Myers). He took Clary’s mother because she knows the whereabouts of a mysterious object that he needs called the Mortal Cub. So Clary decides team-up with the Shadowhunters – Jace (Jaime Campbell Bower), Alec (Kevin Zegers) and Isabelle (Jemima West) – and as well as her best friend Simon (Robert Sheehan) to battle against him.
I must admit that I wasn’t sure what to expect with this film. So I went into it with an open mind since the plot, while not original, was intriguing enough for me to check out. Now you’re probably wondering what did I think of it? Well, I’ll cut straight to the chase: it was awful. I mean really, really awful. I was really surprised at how bad this film was, I was hoping that it would be silly fun but instead what it ended up being was a complete and utter mess. While there are definitely some interesting ideas and concepts at the centre of the film, unfortunately the execution of these elements is so poorly done that they come across rather boring and uninteresting. Plus it doesn’t help that film takes some elements that we have seen many times before in other films and T.V. shows. Director Harald Zwart (who previously directed the surprisingly great remake of THE KARATE KID) tries to inject some visual style into film (one of the few positives I can say about that film is that it visually looks good) but sadly his direction is both by-the-numbers and dull.
The cast try their best with their roles but the script doesn’t do them any favours. They were either really bad (Lily Collins’ line readings here are the definition of bland), extremely hammy and over-the-top (Jonathan Rhys Myers chews the scenery like there is no tomorrow) and some are completely wasted (Lena Heady, C.C.H. Pounder, Jared Harris, Kevin Zegers, Kevin Durand). Plus the love-triangle between Clary, Jace and Simon is completely awkward and unnecessary (seriously, why does there always have to be a love triangle at the centre of these young adult novels?), the script was awfully written and doesn’t make any sense whatsoever (so what the hell was Valentine’s evil plan again?), the dialogue was cringe-worthy (every line in this film is literally just exposition), the CGI was bad, the action scenes were forgettable, its way too long, and there are some twists-and-turns that happen that are so mind numbingly dumb that I seriously couldn’t help groan over how stupid they were.
Even though I really hated this film, I will admit that it does have a few (and I mean very, very few) qualities that stop it from being an abomination. There is one performance that I actually liked in the film and that was Jaime Campbell Bower as “Jace”, mostly I enjoyed the ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude that he brought to his character. He seemed like he was the only one who got what type of film he was in and had some fun with his role. Another thing that surprised most about the film was the design of the monsters. While they are done in rather mediocre CGI but I was taken aback just gruesomely designed they were. They looked like they belonged in a MA15+ horror film like THE THING or the RESIDENT EVIL series than a tween-oriented series (seriously I’m not joking). Also, as I said earlier, the film does visually look good and the production/costume design is actually quite well done. Overall despite those very few redeeming aspects, THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES is still a rather terrible film that I was bored by from beginning to end. It definitely had the potential to be a good fun film but the execution of it is so poorly done that it became a clunky and dull mess. I’m sure they’ll some people out there who might like it (I guess those who read the books will enjoy it) but for me this is one of the worst films that I’ve seen so far in 2013.
Rating:
Review written by Bede Jermyn
The Super Network 