The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)
The movie franchise of Cassandra Clare’s books seems to be stillborn. I love the books even if Clary abandoned her passion for art and poetry to coo over Jace. Clary (Lily Collins) and her friend-zoned friend Simon (Robert Sheehan) go to a skeevy club and sees something. This leads her to Jace (who looks like a meth dealer with his crusty blonde hair) and his gang of Shadowhuners who look like Francis Bacon paintings with their runes and leather.
Clary’s mother Jocelyn (Lena Headey of ‘The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ and ‘Game of Thrones’) fights an evil doer (Kevin Durand of ’Lost’) with a frying pan and a fridge door before being left comatose due to her lack of transparency. Demons lurk and Jace (who looks like he is on the paleo diet) is visible yet isolated. Clary is delusion fatigued. Alec and his endless sense of rage lurks, he is one of the many impossible men in this saga. Valentine (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers of ‘Dracula’ and ‘The Tudors’) seeks The Mortal Cup. The Silent Brothers loom. Isabelle lurks. Magnus Bane wears too much glitter.
Simon’s emotional well being is in peril as he feels he deserves Clary, Alec has a vitriolic reaction to Clary‘s cover girl sheen, werewolves led by Luke (Aidan Turner) show up and the intemperate, vituperative Valentine shouts. There is a portal; Jace and Clary make out to a power ballad - oh the love cube. Tarot cards belonging to Dorothea (CCH Pounder) are important, Clary is stolid and vague, Jace can’t take peer critique because he has the loudest mouth and is selfish, oafish and irresponsible. Hodge (Jared Harris) has pious pity.
There is no tension in this film, but it is good. It’s a shame they won’t make anymore, I would have liked more of the mesmerising Valentine and his ecstatic malevolence. The film ends with sequel hooks and unresolved plot threads. Is Hodge deal? Will Jocelyn resist psychic death? Will Alec wake up? What will happen due to Simon being bitten by a vampire? Would Idris have featured in a sequel? The exact nature of Clary and Jace’s relationship is left vague and why can anyone stroll into the Institute?
Best Lines:
“Yeah, we’re fitting in.”
“It’s a Mortal Instrument, one of the three holy objects of my people.”
“You’re hanging around with some dyed-blonde wannabe Goth weirdo? Where’d you come across this guy?”
“I’m not stupid, am I? Don’t answer that.”
“Is this the part where you start tearing off pieces of your shirt to bind my wounds?”
“If you wanted me to take my clothes off, you should’ve just asked.”
“It became definite when she didn’t die.”
“A war that can never be won. But must always be fought. Demons don’t die easily.”
“This is a top.”
“It’s a dress.”
“How is being dressed like a hooker gonna help me find my mom?”
“She looks like someone whose phone number should be on a bathroom wall.”
“Bach was a Shadowhunter?”
“The broken make the best followers.”