The
Mortal Instruments:
City Of Bones
It’s feels like a movie and a novel that sprung from the
minds of greedy marketing executives and CEOs. As you watch The
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones,
you practically can hear the moneymakers conspiring,
“Let’s get together a bunch of young beautiful
people, put them in cool clothes and make sure we have some sort of
tortured love triangle and it can’t miss! Oh, if you toss in
some demons, vampires and werewolves, too, I smell
blockbuster!”
Lily “daughter of Phil” Collins stars as Clary
– a young girl celebrating her birthday and seeing a strange
symbol wherever she goes. Her mother, Jocelyn (Lena Headey), has
something very important to tell her, but the kid is obsessed with
these new visions, and frightened when they start to include other
people and a murder no one else sees!
Of course, in true Harry Potter fashion, Clary finds out she
isn’t like all the other girls in Brooklyn. She’s
some sort of Shadowhunter who can see the demons that surround us, and
her mother has hidden a magical cup that evildoers want to seize to
take over the world (that’s the short version, you can thank
me later).
And, some cute boy Shadowhunter, Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), pledges
to protect her with his own life when her mother disappears and the
evildoers come hunting our fair maiden with the furry, yet, sexy
eyebrows (I love that line about protecting her with his own life. I
have to try that one out on a date some time, but maybe it works better
if you are a tall, blonde movie star dude).
Can Clary find her mother?
Can she find the magic cup?
Can she find true love?
Will you find the door to the theater showing The
Butler first and go in there?
Unfortunately, The Mortal
Instruments: City of Bones is
more of the same for anyone who has been going to the movies in the
past 40 years or so.
Of course, the nerdy best buddy dude, Simon (Robert Sheehan), has the
legendary unrequited crush on Clary, and he will never escape the
friend zone, even when he takes off his glasses (seriously, I was
waiting for the big moment when he takes off his glasses and looks like
a stud, but that didn’t even help).
Of course, Clary and Jace are fighting off their passion for each other
out of fear they will get hurt.
Of course, we will have betrayals, secret alliances, fight scenes and
some kissing in the rain.
The Mortal
Instruments: City of Bones is
nothing spectacular and nothing abhorrent. It’s bland and
tired and overly familiar and nothing more than late summer trifle for
teens and tweens who need an escape before the beginning of the school
year.
Director Harald Zwart and screenwriter Jessica Postigo (based on the
novel by Cassandra Clare, really? She named the lead character after
herself? Oh, and Cassandra Clare is just a nom de plume, so that makes
it creepier) go through the motions with no eye toward amazing us.
It’s just the same old same old as a teen is told she
can’t trust anyone and nothing is as it appears and no one
really understands her, which leads to the big moment where the
butterfly emerges from her cocoon to kick some ass and become powerful.
Overcoming inner doubt, yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe the most entertaining way to watch The
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
is to count all of the other movies this one rips off. You’ll
see Twilight, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Harry Potter and
more. You’d be better off renting one of those (not named
Twilight).
The Mortal
Instruments: City of Bones even
fails when it attempts to toss in a little bit of humor at times, but
it is so out of place given how “serious” the rest
of this is supposed to be. At least, Lily has the Collins family
fortune to fall back on if this movie thing doesn’t work out.
Sussudio sold ALOT of records.
The
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is rated PG-13 for intense sequences
of fantasy violence and action, and some suggestive content
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