Instant Favorite.

Excellent adaptation.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

This film is for those who grew up missing Buffy, Twilight, and Star Wars. For you older guys out there, make sure you take a bag with you as I discovered my theater doesn't take kindly to hurling chunks. Like Twilight, the film is designed for the female tween audience. Clary (Lily Collins) rhymes with Carrie (Fisher) and reminds us of clairvoyance, is the main teen character. She can see things her friend Simon (Robert Sheehan) can not, especially that symbol that looks like the head of a deranged bunny.One day Clary comes home to find mom (Lena Headey) left a mess and a demonic attack dog. Her life now consists of hanging out with a goth half angelic being (Jamie Campbell Bower), trying to find out who she is, rediscovering her powers, killing the beings Kristen Stewart would rather procreate with, and something about a cup. There is no Bella in this film, just an Isabelle. Could we please get off the Bella Donna word play.The film is a culmination of pop culture designed to appeal to young female fans. All others beware of nausea. Keep an eye on Clary's hair part as it magically changes aka Deb in "Napoleon Dynamite."On a side note: Both Lily Collins (Mirror, Mirror) and Kristen Stewart (Snow White and the Huntsman) both played the role of Snow White. Lily was clearly the superior actress by being able to read a line and use facial expressions.Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. Awkward blend of religion and occult.

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.

In New York City, young Clary starts having problems. She sees people and things that others cannot. She obsessively draws strange symbols in her room. She gets in trouble with strangers at a club and sees impossible actions. Her friend who is a young man is interested in her in a way that she is not interested in him. To top it all off, unknown forces kidnap her mother and ransack the apartment where the two of them lived.Clary discovers that she is a Shadowhunter, a dying breed who have fantastic magical powers, but are fully mortal. That is, they age normally and they die fairly easily. Shadowhunters fight and kill demons as best they can. They get their magic from inheritance (parents were Shadowhunters) or transformation (drinking from the Cup of Raziel). Drinking from the Cup also confers the ability to write runes on one's body; these often yield magical assistance.Their recruiting has been weak of late since two of the most powerful of their members (Valentine and Jocelyn) have gone off the rails. Valentine consorted with demons to gain their powers. Jocelyn hid the Cup to keep it away from Valentine. Valentine wants the Cup back, and goes to all sorts of foul actions to get it. Clary needs to go from her 'mundane' (ordinary human) state to being the most powerful and inventive of all the Shadowhunters in order to stop Valentine. She's shorted on time, since Valentine and his henchmen move things forward quickly.Simon is in love with Clary, Clary is in love with Jace, Jace is in love with Clary, but Valentine convinces Jace that he is Clary's sister. Oi. Magnus and Alec might be attracted to one another, but there is so much going on.------There seemed to me to be just too much going on. I do not fault the actors, but rather the script/book. For this film, we inherit structure from werewolf, vampire, and warlock lore. We inherit structure from biblical warrior angel lore. But wait! There's more! On top of all the rules and logic already involved, we have the invented Shadowhunters. Much of their baggage is not all that well explained. Where did the portal come from? How did they get all that real estate? How do they keep the real estate when there are so few of them, and none of them work, apparently. Where did the underground group dealing with the dead come from? How are they connected? Anyway, much as I liked the film, I thought it was dreadfully short of reaching sufficiency on exposition. Since there is likely no second film matching the books, explanations will likely remain lacking.Note from later: the property morphed into a TV series that ran in 2015. The quality was OK, perhaps, but I could not get traction on it to get further resolution than what I saw in the theatrical film.

I really loved The Mortal Instruments City of Bones and can not wait for the sequel to come out. I think she should stay in love with Jace. I do not think he is her brother so I hope they find out he is not and they fall deep in love. They are both trying to do the right thing for everyone and they will keep everyone safe with there followers. The other guy her friend she has thought of him as more of a brother and I think he should always be brotherly to her. I think you should not make Jace a bad guy to help her father, I think you should chose another villain for that or make him a villain and have her somehow win him back to the good side. That would be a really good story also. I truly loved the movie and I know no matter what you do with the second I will love that one two. I really loved the Twilight series also. I read that some did not care for that series. Thankyou so very much for letting me write a comment and I hope the movie comes out soon. Thankyou so very much.