Review of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) by Alexproductions — 06 Sep 2013

I went in to City of Bones thinking it was going to be a terrible movie, but it turns out I was wrong, it was worse. Before we get too far into the review, I will say that I have not read any of the books so there will be no comparison at all in this review. The film straight out rips off Twilight, Harry Potter, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, all at the same time. You would think that with all these good ideas already existing they could put together a pretty good movie, but I found myself already tired ten minutes, in with another 90 minutes to go.

City of Bones is the story of Clarissa Fray (Lily Collins) who learns that she has special powers and is a shadowhunter. She meets Jace (Jamie Bower) who has a British accent, and together they fight monsters in New York, that only they can see. It's impossible not to see Twilight in this film because there are just so many similarities. A couple hours ago I checked the Rotten Tomatoes score of the film and it reminded me of MySpace. A couple years ago it would've been hot, but today no one likes it or should see it.

Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was just cheap. Cheap special effects that weren't impressive, cheap acting, and a lot of extra false drama incorporated into the film. For example, there was a scene within a few minutes of the start, where Clary's mom picked up a creepy note on the table and the whole family freaked out, like three times slower than a regular persons reaction. From that time, through the rest of the movie, I felt like I was watching a bad soap opera.

The romance felt fake and was at the most random times. Since Twilight had romance, this film had to have a poor copy of romance too. I mean seriously, at least Twilight’s romance was more convincing and made sense. Oh and by the way, Jace was also in all three Twilights and Harry Potter. REALLY?! When I found this out, it reminded me one of those shows where the employee works at their competitors company so they will get all the secrets. Except it didn't help, City of Bones was still crap.

With the colon in the title, it hints the production of another film in the series, which kills me. Hopefully viewers will know the quality of this film, and won’t waste money with the next installment. I felt like this movie belonged more on Nickelodeon, then on the big screen. With no originality, false drama, bad acting, even worse special effects, and soap opera qualities, it’s a no brainer that City of Bones is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and will obviously not be recommended.