Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 130 minutes
Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Starring: Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers, Lena Headey, Kevin Durand, Aidan Turner, Jemima West, Godfrey Gao, C.C.H. Pounder, Jared Harris, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Robert Maillet
KRS release
Lily Collins is Clary Fray, a teenager living in New York with her mother Jocelyn (Lena Headey). In the apartment below them lives the hermit-like Dorothea (C.C.H. Pounder). She is also best friends with Simon Lewis (Robert Sheehan) even though she is totally unaware that he is in love with her. Then life takes a strange twist!
While out partying, she sees Jace Wayland (Jamie Campbell Bower) carrying out a murder, but no one else around her sees the crime.
Her mother calls her and tells her not to go back home. She is under attack by two brutes, Pangborn and Blackwell (Kevin Durand and Robert Maillet). Jocelyn then imbibes a substance and faints.
The film goes all over the place to amaze, wow and please its youthful audience
When Clary arrives, her mother has disappeared. Jace is also there and tells her that he’s a Shadowhunter, a half-human, half-angel who hunts demons and evil spawn. The hulks who attacked her mother are the soldiers of Valentine Morgenstern (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), another Shadowhunter who has gone rogue and who wants the Mortal Cup which Jocelyn had stolen from him. This cup would have given him even more power.
So Jace, accompanied by Clary and Simon, go to the Institute, a magical building that can only be seen by a few who possess an extraordinary ability. Here Clary is trained by Hodge Starkweather (Jared Harris) and meets brother and sister Isabelle and Alec Lightwood (Jemima West and Kevin Zegers).
Soon Clary learns that she had been kept under the spell of Magnus Bane (Godfrey Gao) in order not to remember the things she had seen in her childhood. That is when she and her friends set out to find her mother while fighting against all manner of monsters.
Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is an adaptation of the first book of the bestselling urban fantasy/young adult series by Cassandra Clare, who has written five books out of a six-book series so far.
Harald Zwart, who has directed the likes of teenage friendly pictures Agent Cody Banks (2003) and Karate Kid (2010), brings the book to life with all the gloss he can muster and all the monsters imaginable.
This German-American production has all the traits to render it appealing to the teenagers who are looking to fill the void left behind by the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises. After the death of these franchises, Hollywood moguls have been constantly looking to strike gold in this genre. The Hunger Games (2012) was one such successful film.
Mortal Instruments has all the ingredients to rise above the crowd. Clare combines elements of Harry Potter and Twilight with some contextual themes from varied films such as the parental relationships from the Star Wars saga.
The film goes all over the place to amaze, wow and please its youthful audience. It has vampires, werewolves, evil lords, half-angels, demons and more, and it is entertaining in a cheesy and over-the-top way.
It also benefits from a worthy international cast. Standing out is Collins, who is in fine form as Clary, a mix of Bella from Twilight and Katniss from The Hunger Games.
The adults play supporting roles and do this with the appropriate gusto, especially Rhys Meyers who is definitely having fun playing the toady villain.
Everything is made to look cool and flashy. The film takes on a Gothic-style look, especially in its costumes, as everyone seems to have a fetish for leather and dark make-up.
This fantasy ride should sate its audience until the second instalment of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire rolls up. One should also note that the second instalment of this franchise: The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes is rumoured to be already in production.