If I had to rename this movie, I would just call it “Two Hours of ‘LORD, WHY ME?!’”
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is a new film adaptation of the first book in the best-selling series. For about a year now, this movies has been hyped up with the usual please-come-see-this clichés, chief among them “The Worldwide Phenomenon.” I guess I should have known.
Whatever genius thought they could successfully condense 500 pages into a two hour film should be thrown off the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, so they have enough time to think about their incompetence before they meet a much deserved end. The minds behind this one pulled a Peter Jackson and created a movie completely different from the book.
The story is of 15 year old Clary Fray, whose mother disappears under mysterious circumstances. There’s the foundation. Let’s jump ahead an hour. Clary has realized that both she and her mother are infused with angel blood and that a genocidal villain is searching for a magical cup. She’s shared a total of about 4 minutes of screen time with some potentially cool people in a building invisible to humans (referred to as “mundanes”). Her best friend is clearly crushing on her, but she’s not feeling it. (What, you thought this was gonna be something fresh and original?) Anyway, dude gets kidnapped by vampires and is rescued in a dining hall fight between the vamps and the wolves. I’m sorry, I thought Harry Potter and Twilight were over?
Let’s slide into the ending: Clary’s in love with a kid who’s so blonde you need sunglasses to watch him flip his golden locks and so skinny that he looks like he’ll pull an Oscar Proud and disappear if he turns sideways. Blonde kid turns out to be her brother. (Ew!) Her mother’s boyfriend is a werewolf (obvious due to the very large fake teeth). All other werewolves have died at the hands of smoldering acrobatic demons. The bad guy’s henchmen look like Willy Wonka went half-goth and created humanoid orcs with bad haircuts who like to hump other men’s legs, and the sweet old librarian betrays the kids he’s sworn to look after (because we’ve really never seen that before) and then strangely disappears at the end. Clary masterfully learns to use powerful, unknown runes just in time to save everyone. And, in true Taylor-Lautner-wannabe style, the guys appear shirtless on screen to show off their barely noticeable abs. Seriously, these kids look like they haven’t had so much as a chicken finger since 1999.
So to recap: incest, bad acting, leg-humping, bird-chested dudes, and not a moment of originality in the whole movie. With a rushed-into plot and inexperienced actors, Hollywood has failed to do this book justice. Is anyone surprised?