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The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (Harald Zwart)
"Horribly Rushed Effort"
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is like an annoying little brother who desperately wants to hang out with the cooler older siblings. They try to imitate them in every shape and form, yet you know it’s just not meant to be. Instruments, as I’ll refer to it from here on out, is a rushed, half assed attempt at cashing in on a current craze of YA novels.
Young Clary begins seeing this weird symbol everywhere she looks, it turns out that she is a descendant of a line of warriors known as Shadowhunters, who protect the mortal world from vampires, werewolves and other demons. When her mother disappears, Clary finds herself smack down in the middle of a war in a world that only she can seem to see.
As I watched Instruments, I thought to myself, “You know what? I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but Twilight is better.” When I finished the film, I knew it to be true. At the very least, Twilight knew what it wanted to be. This film unfortunately has absolutely no idea. It is all over the place. I don’t know if this is a result of a bad script adaptation or if the source material just isn’t strong enough. On top of that, the film is horribly miscast, visually bland and obnoxiously hollow.
Our main protagonist, Clary, played by Lilly Collins, has zero personality. As I’m writing this, I can barely remember a thing about her. Why was she cast in this role? Her co-star doesn’t fare any better. Jamie Campbell Bower is Jace, a mysterious blonde warrior who broods, has defined cheekbones and a sexy accent. So what about the chemistry between these two? It’s non-existent. The supporting cast doesn’t help the film either. Lena Headey, Jared Harris, CCH Pounder, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers and Jonathan Rhys Meyers all turn in bland performances. One of my favourite bits is when one characters turns to another and questions their sexuality. This happens out of nowhere, for no reason and has no resolution. A lot of things like this happen.
The reason for such mistakes in the plotting and character development has to be because they want to save all this stuff for a sequel. Here is another instance of randomness that is never solved; a vampire bites one character and our main character notices this. What does she do? Tell him? Tell others? Try to find a cure of some kind? Nothing. She literally does nothing. Then this plot thread is never brought up again. You’d think she would be concerned given their relationship in the film, but she plays it off as if it is nothing.
With weapons that do whatever the characters asks for, poorly choreographed fight sequences and laughable special effects, this film is a horrible mess that deserves to be missed. You can’t throw together a film just because it has a built in fan base already. The producers of this film learned that the hard way, as there are no plans for a sequel. The film did terribly, was trashed by critics and they are already thinking of rebooting it to a TV series. Hopefully they will pay more attention to some character development, story and pacing because the film version is a huge misfire.
"Horribly Rushed Effort"
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is like an annoying little brother who desperately wants to hang out with the cooler older siblings. They try to imitate them in every shape and form, yet you know it’s just not meant to be. Instruments, as I’ll refer to it from here on out, is a rushed, half assed attempt at cashing in on a current craze of YA novels.
Young Clary begins seeing this weird symbol everywhere she looks, it turns out that she is a descendant of a line of warriors known as Shadowhunters, who protect the mortal world from vampires, werewolves and other demons. When her mother disappears, Clary finds herself smack down in the middle of a war in a world that only she can seem to see.
As I watched Instruments, I thought to myself, “You know what? I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but Twilight is better.” When I finished the film, I knew it to be true. At the very least, Twilight knew what it wanted to be. This film unfortunately has absolutely no idea. It is all over the place. I don’t know if this is a result of a bad script adaptation or if the source material just isn’t strong enough. On top of that, the film is horribly miscast, visually bland and obnoxiously hollow.
Our main protagonist, Clary, played by Lilly Collins, has zero personality. As I’m writing this, I can barely remember a thing about her. Why was she cast in this role? Her co-star doesn’t fare any better. Jamie Campbell Bower is Jace, a mysterious blonde warrior who broods, has defined cheekbones and a sexy accent. So what about the chemistry between these two? It’s non-existent. The supporting cast doesn’t help the film either. Lena Headey, Jared Harris, CCH Pounder, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers and Jonathan Rhys Meyers all turn in bland performances. One of my favourite bits is when one characters turns to another and questions their sexuality. This happens out of nowhere, for no reason and has no resolution. A lot of things like this happen.
The reason for such mistakes in the plotting and character development has to be because they want to save all this stuff for a sequel. Here is another instance of randomness that is never solved; a vampire bites one character and our main character notices this. What does she do? Tell him? Tell others? Try to find a cure of some kind? Nothing. She literally does nothing. Then this plot thread is never brought up again. You’d think she would be concerned given their relationship in the film, but she plays it off as if it is nothing.
With weapons that do whatever the characters asks for, poorly choreographed fight sequences and laughable special effects, this film is a horrible mess that deserves to be missed. You can’t throw together a film just because it has a built in fan base already. The producers of this film learned that the hard way, as there are no plans for a sequel. The film did terribly, was trashed by critics and they are already thinking of rebooting it to a TV series. Hopefully they will pay more attention to some character development, story and pacing because the film version is a huge misfire.