Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013): Review

Tonight I decide to stay up past my bedtime and go see Mortal Instruments: City of Bones with my sister.  This movie was released today and I was excited to see it, but I didn't know really what to expect because it was being released in August and August is not always the best time of year for good movies.  Anyway it was not as good as I was hoping for but lately I feel like I have been spoiled with pretty good teen paranormal novel movies.
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is a movie based on the first book of the Mortal Instrument series by Cassandra Clare.  It follows Clary, played by Lily Collins, as she discovers she is a shadow hunter, a half human/ half angle, who work to kill demons and try and keep balance in the world.  Clary starts to think she is crazy when she starts drawing the angle rune on everything and sees things that other people can see.  Everything gets worse when her house is broken into and her mother disappears.  She meets fellow shadow hunter, Jace, played by Jamie Campbell Bower, and is dragged along as they try and find out what happened to Clary's mother and try and find the Mortal Cup which her mother had hidden.  Dragged along is Clary's mundane friend Simon and fellow shadow hunter siblings Isabella and Alec.  Along the way Clary discovers that the world is not what she thought it was and people are not who she thought they were.
For the type of movie this was it was okay and for people who tend to like these teen paranormal novel movies it is worth watching, but this specific one had some things that I struggled with.  I will start with the positive. I like Lily Collins as an actress and I think she does a good job as the heroine of the story, she is someone who the audience can connect with and hope that she works it out, even though she is totally daft where boys are concerned.  It was interesting how the magic was incorporated into the story.  I like the use of runes for stuff but thought it was weird that they had powers to create things by writing rune but not by just doing them.  I thought that overall there was a good pace throughout and lots of action to keep it exciting.  There is some of the close it, choppy sequences but it was keep to a minimum.  Some of the tension between the characters was goo and kept it interesting until one point where it just became, no they didn't do that to me and I am uncertain how I feel about it (you will know what I mean when you watch it).
Overall the negatives were normal for this type of movie, there was some awkward acting and cheaper prosthetics used.  I am mainly talking about the vampires and transitioning werewolf's. The main thing that was difficult for me was the main male actor Bower, as he is not the type of guy that I have any interest in what so ever and he was suppose to do the mysterious guy who all the girls crush on.  I know that some people find that type of dressing and looks attractive but it is not for me and I just don't get it.  This wouldn't have been such a big deal if there wasn't so much focus on him and references to his appeal, I would have preferred more of the archetypical "bad boy." 
Overall it is basically what it was advertised to be and was pretty run of the mill for this type of teen paranormal novel movie. For anyone who doesn't like and cant handle these type of movies stay clear.

My Rating: 2-

No comments:

Post a Comment