Memorable, crazy movie

Good start, but then it gets ruined

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Wow, I went into this with no expectations, and almost hit my TV. The story arc is interesting, the directing, acting, script and characters are cliche with every single teen-based sci-fi movie. Special effects--well done Acting-----same as Twilight, main actress has two faces, whiny and pouting. Directing--fight scenes okay, zero anything doing regular dialogue Character Development---I honestly did not care what happened to any of them. Was secretly hoping a few would be killed off.In short, if you only like action and watching pretty young perfect bodied people jump around the screen and nothing else, you may enjoy this film. If you require anything else, you will not.

Here we see a film ruined by Hollywood film industry bulls*~t. for all intents and purposes this film was visually a breathtaking piece of art. As a fan of the source material I can say without a doubt that when i read the books this is the world that I picture. The atmospheric world building in this film is spectacular.The props were authentic to the very minute details. They built weapons and tools like the stele's that simply don't exist in this world and managed to bring them to fruition with flare.The cast and costume was on point. the character descriptions fit the cast to the letter. the colour pallet fit into the magical otherworldly element of the books, sticking to oranges and reds and blues. And don't even get me started on the score. It was magnificent. Everything about this film screamed atmospheric and authentic to the source material. There in lies all of this films issues. It's all superficial. in the midst of hyped teen franchises like the hunger games, harry potter and divergent, the industry put all there efforts into a rushed release of this franchise. The creators clearly had no regard for the content. they over shot and sacrificed content for money and tried to mesh elements from the first 3 books into 1 poorly constructed plot for the sake of attracting teens not familiar with the books.The acting leaves something to be desired curtousy of the cheesy and poorly adapted script, choosing to shoot for whimsically funny...but falling flat. Pacing is clunky and all sense of why you sat down to watch this film is lost in the 2nd act. The conclusion is anticlimactic and makes no sense. Clary kind of froze her dad to death...but didn't. but maybe she did since it was never explained. Everything from a content point of view for this film was just awful. It screams rushed and poorly executed. And it's a damn shame too. This very well could have been the next harry potter teen sensation film franchise...but unfortunately it fell through the cracks of the money grabbing film industry.This may be the Prettiest film I've ever hated.

I could go on and on about how pedestrian so many of the generic components of this movie are, and that the hack tinkerer-borrower-thieves (please don't call them authors, even though one of them wrote a book series this is based on), or how laughable the CGI and effects are (this may be the movie's one saving grace... in spurts, like when a big Rottweiler turns into a, uh, dog-squid thing, it's hilarious), or that Lily Collins' eyebrows steal the show from most of the cast. Or that Jared Harris has the look of desperation (and maybe mild-to-severe drunkenness) that his father had in various roles over the years when slumming it is the polite term for what he's doing here. Or that Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, of all people, seems to be the only guy here trying to get SOMETHING out of this material and hams it up to a degree I kind of respect.But I'd rather go on about Jamie Campbell Bower. I can't remember the last time that a lead male acting performance in a major motion picture - and for how cheap some of this (or a lot of this) looks and feels as a picture made for YA Hot Topic girls (and the poor boyfriends dragged along), it's a 60 million dollar movie that's meant to launch a franchise (which it didn't) - sunk something else so low with him. I don't know if another actor could have exactly *saved* this movie, since so many things with the over-convoluted plot make it so tedious and dumb and boring, though maybe it isn't since so much revolves around a magic cup that can be reached by Collins through her magic as a uh Shadow-walker or whatever it is.But I can imagine that another actor, maybe who could get some decent chemistry or have some charisma or personality or ANYTHING REMOTELY WORTHY FOR HUMANITY AS A SPECIES could at least make this watchable. I'd rather sit through ten hours strapped in an Alex DeLarge D-Box seat of the Twilight movies with Robert Pattinson's smoldering and awkward tension than see this waste of air again. This is a person who got cast because of his cheekbones and blonde hair; how can it be for his acting? Ironically he also appeared in those Twilight movies, so perhaps there was a correlation. But none of his lines register, and he has a good deal of exposition to deliver so it does matter (I think I missed a few points here and there through his monotony), and he emotes like a dry sponge. The model-actresses in The Neon Demon had more screen presence, only there that was part of the POINT that they seemed so out of it and detached. Why do casting directors, or whoever was involved in the decision to put this man in this movie, think this is okay to throw wasteful, palid, skinny-white-as-f*** boy meat to presumably starving pubescent girls? As far as miscasting, Bruce Willis in Bonfire of the Vanities suddenly seems like a good idea! It may sound like I'm picking on him, and maybe I am. I simply can't stress enough for you how much of a vacuum he served; physically I can see it only in the most basic sense of (spoiler) who he is supposed to be familiarly connected with in the story. But at any rate he is part of the package of what this movie is delivering anyway: a tepid romantic love triangle, and hodge-podge of tropes from so many, many of these kind of movies, whether it's Underworld (vampires and werewolves and, yes, those did it friggin better!), or Twilight, or even god damn Star Wars(!), and a few decent actors like Harris and Headley are caught up in the miasma.A few parts are funny in a fun-bad-OMG movie kind of way, usually pertaining to some of the CGI creations or, at one point, blooming flowers and a sudden shower of indoor rain when the main couple finally first kisses. This aside, this is a complete piece of modern day movie garbage, packaged in the most cynical manner and appealing to the worst tastes (i.e. this poor excuse for smoldering - I mean, come on man, Spike from Buffy called and he asked his nephew to step AWAY from the cameras please!) Stay away.

THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES is yet another young adult fantasy adaptation of a popular novel. This one clearly ploughs HARRY POTTER and TWILIGHT territory, detailing a story that's extraordinarily similar to the famous tales regarding the boy wizard, except swapping genders and adding demons to the mix.Truth be told, it's not all bad, and it's hard to see why this was such a flop on release. I for one enjoyed it more than various instalments from the HUNGER GAMES or DIVERGENT franchises; it has a faster pace and more action, for a start. It's hardly a great film, but as a kiddie version of a type of BLADE storyline it's not the worst.The biggest problems here are the attempts to shoehorn in a typical twee and cheesy teen romance courtesy of the foppish Jamie Campbell Bower, which leads to some excruciating scenes. Plus, Lily Collins (MIRROR, MIRROR) is hardly what you would call a great actress - her eyebrows do most of the work. Robert Sheehan is another embarrassment. The older cast members are much better - Jonathan Rhys Meyers has a ball as the villain, and the likes of Lena Headey, CCH Pounder, and Jared Harris put in solid support. The demonic special effects (CGI, of course) aren't too shabby, and I enjoyed seeing the various beasties the film has to offer, even if some of them are heavily derived from the likes of WRATH OF THE TITANS. Bear in mind this isn't good enough to merit another watch, though; it's too much derived from what's come previously.