With books, a TV show and a live-action movie, there’s not much else that can be done with ‘The Mortal Instruments.’ But has such quantity come at the cost of quality? Photo from amazon.com.
“City of Bones” is the first novel in “The Mortal Instruments” series by Cassandra Clare. Being one of six books in the series and over 500 pages itself, there has luckily been both a television and movie adaptation of the novel for people who want to experience the story without reading the bulky book.
The novel takes readers on a great journey through a so-called secret supernatural version of 2007 New York. This includes encounters with demons, witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, fairies and more.
Clary Fray, a normal 15-year-old, unexpectedly finds herself in the world of Shadowhunters – demon hunters who must kill the demons who make their way to Earth and protect the mortal world. Clary finds out that she herself is a Shadowhunter and must save her mother who has been kidnapped by finding the first mortal instrument, the mortal cup, which her mother has hidden.
I have read all of “The Mortal Instruments” and, because of this, I will not watch the TV show; from the short clips I have seen (and the things I have heard), it isn’t accurate at all.
But there is also a 2013 movie adaptation of the first book starring Lily Collins as Clary Fray that is a pretty good option for the non-book lovers (or the people who don’t have the time to read a 500-page book). So as your Shadowhunter expert, I will be reviewing it for you.
To start, the casting in my opinion is superb. The movie automatically gets a plus 10 points because Collins absolutely nails her performance. She’s lovable and charismatic and brave, and looks great with red hair. Jamie Campbell Bower plays Jace Wayland, a fellow Shadowhunter who mentors Clary, and does an amazing job portraying Jace’s sarcastic sense of humor. Lastly, Robert Sheehan, that guy that everyone loves from Netflix’s “The Umbrella Academy,” plays Clary’s best friend Simon Lewis. Simon is another sarcastic and loveable character who is integral to the entire series and Sheehan does him justice.
Another positive point for the movie – the music. Specifically, the instrumental selections that were composed for the film, which added so much ambiance to all the scenes that I so vividly pictured in my head. Do some of them sound a little like the “Jurassic Park” theme song? Yes, but I love “Jurassic Park” so I’m not complaining.
The combat scenes were also very entertaining as many of them came with a funny component so that it isn’t all so serious. They were also well-rehearsed, which is always a plus because I hate it when combat scenes look like two people dancing (I know that’s what they are in actuality, but I don’t want to see that).
Now, for the negatives, because while this movie is pretty good, it’s not free of its share of sins. First off, Jace has some pretty cringe flirtatious lines in here, and even though his character is cocky and flirtatious, some of them were just too much to handle, and were also not in the book, so they really didn’t need to be there.
Next, we have Alec Lightwood, who we find out has feelings for his best friend, Jace, however, he doesn’t feel the same way. When Alec sees that Jace is starting to have feelings for Clary, he becomes very jealous and wants Clary to leave them alone. Alec eventually warms up to Clary, but that takes a couple of books. In the book, Alec’s anger is pretty passive-aggressive; he’ll tell Clary he doesn’t want her there occasionally, but for the most part, he just gives her dirty looks. I was pretty disgusted to see that at one point, while Alec is confronting Clary, he literally grabs her by the neck. This is not okay, but also something that isn’t even in the novel, so if that was put in for cinematic purposes, I do not appreciate it to say the least.
Lastly, and the biggest sin of all: Simon does not turn into a rat at Magnus Bane’s party. While at a party, Simon drinks a substance that is made for fairies and it ends up turning him into a rat for a period of time, which is not only an important part of the plot, but it’s also very funny. When I realized Simon wasn’t going to be turned into a rat, I wanted to throw my Amazon Prime Video subscription out the window.
Overall, the movie isn’t 100 percent accurate, but for anyone who wants to experience the gist of the “Shadowhunters” world without reading a plethora of very long novels, I would certainly recommend this movie, especially over the TV show. It’s still full of good action, adventure and some great one-liners that almost mask some of the other lacking details.