The Mortal Instruments : City of Bones (2013)

Genre : Adventure/Fantasy
Country : USA

Cast :
Lilly Collins : Clary
Jamie Campbell Bower : Jace
Kevin Zegers : Alec
Robert Sheehan : Simon

Director :
Harald Zwart

My opinion

“Harry Potter – Twilight – X-men – Titanic ” in a belch causing cocktail

I was expecting a fun fantasy film but was catapulted into a mix of different films after a good half hour. It’s apparently a movie based (again) on a successful series of children’s books. I haven’t read any of these since I never heard of them. I have absolutely no problem with that, but I expect that in spite I haven’t read any of those books, it would be nice to understand what it’s all about anyway. I must admit that after an hour I still didn’t have a clue what it was about ! The beginning was promising and extremely good. I hoped it would go on with this zest. The mythological runes, murder in the Gothic club, realizing that she can only see the Shadowhunters and later the invasion of her mother’s apartment. Until there I found it very entertaining and the start of a relaxing evening. Side note: I really wonder why the Goth scene is always involved when it comes to such themes.

At the time that the dangerous looking dog begins to mutate into a monstrosity, Clary blows up the kitchen with the kitchen oven in a incomprehensible way and Jace briefly enters the room and simply kills the demon (Yep it’s a demon) and sends it back to the … uh … afterlife or Valhalla or I-don’t-know-where, it just goes downhill.

It leads to a chaotic crisscross of mythological legends and fantasy elements that were thrown together in a tangle of incomprehensible plots. Before you know it you’re stuck with a collection of werewolves, vampires, warlocks, witches and demons. The atmosphere of the film turns into a “Twilight” (Yeak) inspired movie, with an ancient legend as head of an institute, who apparently has been cursed so he can’t leave the building anymore. There are suddenly ancient runes discovered. Clary gets in some way the inspiration to tattoo those runes on her hand after which she freezes a gang of demons with it. Harry Potter would be jeaulous about this fancy trick. As similar as in “Beautiful Creatures” and “The Last Keepers“, Clary discovers her powers and abilities gradually. And finally there’s also the budding teenage love (sigh…) and a triangular relationship. Clary must choose between a nerdy childhood friend who just transformed into a vampire and the new arrived person who looks like a kind of angel. It’s a similar situation as in “The Host”. This results in a “Titanic“-like soap moment with a romantic wet kiss in the “like a fairytale looking” greenhouse, after which the sprinkler spontaneous starts spraying. Faint-time for teenage girls. For me it was the moment to start rolling my eyes and heave a deep sigh. Not out of sympathy but out of gagging frustrations.

As a climax we get a “Star Wars” ripoff which shows that the evil Valentine seems to be the father of those two persons Clary and Jace. Gargle gargle gargle Jace … I am your father …. Another sigh moment for me. Generally the movie is extremely dark and pretty grim filmed. The combat scenes were so disorderly and chaotic that you, along with the dark setting, had no idea who did what and what the outcome would be. Final conclusion: it’s clear that the marketing departments scheduled this teenage commercial monstrosity that resembled other more successful and sublime examples. But the worse thing is that it’s a blueprint of the “Twilight” crap. Maybe it would be better to read the reviews and opinions in advance the next time. Then I could spare myself of the suffering to watch this failed project.

My rating 1/10
Links : IMDB