Ever
since the fifth and thankfully last installment in the epic Twilight
Saga graced our theater screens, Hollywood has been in a desperate
search to find that next big terrible franchise inspired by some high
concept young adult literary series. So far, the results have been a
bit mixed, though with the exception of The Hunger Games, still
generally disappointing. The Host presented us with an interesting
setting and a potentially complex villain in its benign invaders, but
was too poorly executed to take advantage of them. On the other hand,
Beautiful Creatures, for all its complete lack of subtlety, had a
certain campy Southern-fried charm. This of course brings us to The
Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, the first in what I read could be
as many as six films not counting various spin-offs, that despite a
few bright spots and some obvious style and potential, makes me dread
the coming years should this new “saga” come to fruition.
The
Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones follows a young girl named...oh
let's just say Bella, because who cares? She's lost and moody,
struggling to articulate her oh so white and pretty specialness in a
world just waiting to reveal the secret of why she's the chosen one,
when sure enough she comes upon a secret society of monster killers
called Shadowhunters that only she can see, who induct her into their
world of intrigue and uninspired action set pieces. The movie
actually begins with more than a little promise, with mysterious
symbols, subconscious memories, invisible murderers, and an action
sequence involving a tentacle limbed devil dog that's pretty well
done. It is at this point that I began to notice the pedigree of the
cast, starting with Game of Thrones' Lena Headey, LOST's Kevin
Durand, and Warehouse 13's CCH Pounder, as well as the brilliant
Robert Sheehan from Misfits. Since I know Jared Harris and Jonathan
Rhys Meyers are also both due to show up in major roles at some
point, I feel I should be forgiven for thinking this one might
actually pan out into something.
The
waste of so much talent is perhaps the greatest sin this movie
commits, but its only the first of many. Up to this point, Twilight
and its many clones, at least based on the film adaptations I've
seen, have all settled on one basic concept, be it Vampires vs.
Werewolves, alien invasion, ripping off Battle Royale, or witches.
Go ahead and throw all of that and more into a blender and poor the
unrecognizable and unappetizing mess onto a plate, and the resulting
dish of gruel called The Mortal Instruments is somehow both bland and
offensively distasteful. Its the kitchen sink of supernatural worlds
by way of Buffy and The World Of Darkness with none of the wit or fun
or either one, replaced with the tired emo love triangle bullshit
that all these movies arbitrarily wedge into the plot to act as
teenage girl wish fulfillment, with cookie cutter handsome bad boys
vying for the affections of a girl so blank in personality that any
girl in the audience can substitute themselves for her. It's to be
expected, but that doesn't make it any less unbearable to sit
through.
You
know that thing movies do sometimes called basic foreshadowing?
Really, you're aware of it? Well then congratulations, you aren't any
of the people who made this movie. Everything that is important to
the plot in The Mortal Instruments is only revealed as important
seconds before it becomes important, with barely enough time for its
many narrative cheats to even qualify as red herrings or macguffins.
That a story ultimately revolving around the search for what might as
well be the Holy Grail can be so otherwise pointlessly convoluted is
the kind of shitty storytelling you actually have to try hard to do.
Characters and character relationships are introduced or
dramatically revealed suddenly without any concern for their relative
impact on the story, and often forgotten about just as quickly, and
if I could bring myself to care about any of it, any particular
element I might have some attachment to is either ignored as soon as
it comes up, or completely invalidated a few scenes later. You see
this often in movies built on an escalating series of twists, but
here I wouldn't even call them twists as much as a series of bad
ideas that prove to be mutually exclusive and thus require you to
forget about the previous bad idea.
There
have been many attempts to create a world secretly filled with
monsters and legendary creatures, some more successful than others.
The idea of demons, vampires, werewolves, and so on all sharing the
same space just under our noses, our lives constantly under
supernatural threat and only protected by a small band of expert
badasses is a cliche for a reason, and can still be done well if
given a unique spin on the same old monsters. Unfortunately, The
Mortal Instruments is an utter failure both as a horror fantasy and
just as an attempt at entertainment in general. As is all too often
the case, the need to add to the already glutted marketplace of
overwrought teen romance bogs the story down so that anything it
appears to have going for it is given short shrift in favor of
doe-eyed soulful looks and passionate PG-13 porn for the Taylor Swift
set, in between scenes with actors you know can and should be doing
much better movies. Robert Sheehan left Misfits to pursue a film
career, and this is the first thing I've seen him in since. I have to
believe he's done better, because I don't want to think he ruined a
perfectly good TV show just to make a movie as bad as this one.
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