The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Dir: Harald Zwart

2013

*

I knew The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was based on a 'Young adult' novel before sitting down to watch it but as a keen reviewer I went into it, as I do every film, with an open mind. I thought that after Twilight had conquered the Vampire/Werewolf/miserable teenager genre and The Hunger Games had taken the futuristic dystopian sudo-revolutionary genre mantle, that they had probably raised the bar to compete and had come up with something new, especially considering the books have been very popular. The truth is though that The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, or Cassandra Clare I should say, has picked apart every 'Young adult' (I hate that term), fantasy, Gothic romance story and film that has come before and has spewed out what it thinks is the best bits in a muddled and unexciting order. I've heard Cassandra Clare praised because she 'fought' against the studios who wanted a male lead rather than the original female lead character, fair enough, but I think this is only to distract from the fact that this is a terrible and rather recycled affair. Also, both Twilight and The Hunger Games have a lead female character, so I'm not sure why the fuss in the first place. It's a sad sign of the times in my opinion (*steps on soapbox), when I was young (start the violin music..) me and my friends would read books like 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and The Lord of the Flies. Those of us that got into them then went on to read books by Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick and Anthony Burgess to name but a few. As far as I can tell, 'Young adult' novels incorporate many of these ideas, the lazier ones add a few Vampires and Werewolves here and there, stick an unconvincing romance in there and fill the story full of humourless teenagers. Almost every character has an alarmingly annoying level of smugness about them. Why are these kids so smug? You may point out that many of these smug teenagers are actually hundreds of years old but then I would point out even deeper problems with the romantic story-lines, so let’s not go there. Why aren't teenagers rebelling against this bland drivel? These books seems to be accepted by the grownups, surely a good reason to dismiss them and read something they wouldn't approve of no? I'm showing my age, these books/film are clearly not made for me but I do hope my kids grow up to read something more interesting than this. How many times can you tell the same story, especially given that the first time wasn't even that great? Story aside, the visual effects, editing and performances are fairly terrible but the script is easily the worst thing about it, the self-knowing humour being terribly unfunny and suggesting that everyone involved is fully aware of how bad it all is.