The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Time for the latest film adaptation from a series of fantasy novels, in this case Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments (nope, me neither). All the standards are present and correct. There are strange symbols, angels, demons, assorted monsters, special effects, romance, death and a bland male lead (a robotic Jamie Campbell Bowyer). It’s silly in parts (Johann Sebastian Bach was a demon hunter. Who knew?), but it does have its charms and Lily Collins as the main female protagonist puts in the required effort. In fact the first 30 minutes suggest something a bit more than the usual genre entry, but things start to fall off very quickly following a love scene so cheesy that even teenage girls will be reaching for the sick bucket and the last third of the film tries to shoe-horn in so much plot that the whole thing becomes as incomprehensible as its confusing title. The special effects are decent throughout (a “frozen” collection of demons is highly impressive), but director Harald Zwart can’t keep a handle on everything that’s going on, which probably explains a confused looking Jonathan Rhys Meyers at the films denouement and some odd stuff in the script concerning incest. Still at least it doesn’t appear to be taking itself too seriously and it doesn’t whimper around like much of the Twilight series did. Alex Pettyfer turned down the male lead of the film so the producers solved that problem by casting his lookalike in Campbell Bowyer. What next? Red Hot Chilli Pepper’s drummer Chad Smith as Ron Burgundy? Rating: 6/10.