Review: Harold Zwart: Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

I have to confess, I went to see Mortal Instruments: City of Bones simply because I had seen a big display at my second favorite theater. It opened at my favorite theater (close, cheap), so I went. I liked it well enough that when I ran across the DVD at the right price, I bought it.

Clary Fray (Lily Collins) is having a birthday. To celebrate, she goes out with her best friend, Simon (Robert Sheehan) to a poetry reading. As an antidote, she insists that they stop at a club afterward – because she saw a symbol on its sign that just like the symbol she’s been drawing. Strangely enough, no one else can see it. And somehow, she and Simon don’t really fit in, which becomes fairly obvious when she witnesses a murder that no one else sees – not even Simon. When she comes home one day to discover the apartment she shares with her mother, Jocelyn (Lena Headey) a sea of wreckage and said mother missing, she doesn’t quite know what to do, especially when she’s attacked by a pair of thugs and rescued in the nick of time by – the man who committed the murder she witnessed, Jace Wayland (Jamie Campbell Bower). From the fact that she can see him, he surmises that she is not a “mundane” – that is, human. She’s a Shadow Hunter, from a long line of Shadow Hunters, and she holds a secret that everyone is after – the whereabouts of a Chalice that enables the Shadow Hunters to survive. The problem is, she has no idea what it is or where it is. And it’s essential that it be found: the Shadow Hunters protect the world from demons, and without Shadow Hunters . . . well, you can guess.

Basically, this is a classic coming of age story – Clary first of all has to learn what she is and what she can do, and then how to do it. Add in werewolves, led by her mother’s sort-of boyfriend, Luke (Aidan Turner), and a mad Shadow Hunter, Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who claims to be not only Clary’s father, but Jace’s, assorted demons, and the Portal, which can transport a Shadow Hunter to anywhere he or she can visualize clearly, and you have the makings of an engaging and action-packed adventure story on top of it.

And it works. I went into this one cold – not only was I not a fan of the books, I wasn’t even aware that they existed – so I was saved from premonitions of another Twilight. I admit, I was not riveted by Collins’ performance on first viewing – flashbacks to Kristen Stewart in Snow White and the Huntsman – but after seeing it a second time, I chalk that up to the meds my doctor has me on. I would have liked a bit more clarity in her growth into her powers, but I suspect the script is more than a little responsible for that – there’s doesn’t seem to be a lot of room for subtext here, which is a shame, because it affects all the characters. Bower is engaging as Jace, but somehow remote, whilte Sheehan is more than appealing as Simon, in good part because he’s really the only one who lets us into his head.

The effects are persuasive, and although the pacing is given to fits and starts, the acting is capable enough to carry it as an action/adventure quasi-horror flick.

And yet, it’s not that strong a film, largely because of that lack of subtext: the story’s engaging, the visuals are sometimes riveting, the characters are sympathetic, but when it was all over, I just said, “Well, that was nice” and went on to the next activity. It doesn’t really have the depth to stick with you.

Rated PG-13, running time 130 minutes.

(Constantin Film, Unique Features, Mister Smith Entertainment, Mr. Smith Productions, 2013)