“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is another film adaptation inspired from a young adult New York Best Selling novel but instead of being faithful to it, the film adaptation becomes something different and becomes more of a popcorn adventure film and slightly confusing plot. Considering its high production and fascinating characters, the hype surrounding this film made you want more, but you feel that you got less out of the film. Still, I’ll give this film the benefit of the doubt that I did find the dark storyline and its characters quite fascinating and I’m hoping the sequel for this film to be much better. I hope!
© 2013 Constantin Film International GmbH and Unique Features (TMI) Inc. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
FILM RELEASE: 2013
DURATION: 130 Minutes
BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, 2:40:1, English 5.1DTS-HA MA, English – Audio Description Track 5.1 Dolby Digital, Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
COMPANY: Screen Gems/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
RATED: PG-13 (For Intense Sequences of Fantasy Violence and Action and Some Suggestive Content)
Release Date: December 3, 2013
Directed by Harald Zwart
Screenplay by Jessica Postigo
Based on the Novel by Cassandra Clare
Produced by Don Carmody, Robert Kulzer
Executive Producer: Michael Lynne, Martin Moszkowicz, Robert Shaye
Co-Executive Producer: Veslemoy Ruud Zwart
Line Producer: Hartley Gorenstein
Music by Atli Orvarsson
Cinematography by Geir Hartley Andreassen
Edited by Joel Negron
Casting by Stephanie Corsalini
Production Design by Francois Seguin
Art Direction by Anthony A. Ianni
Set Decoration by Patricia Larman
Costume Design by Gersha Phillips
Starring:
Lily Collins as Clary
Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace
Kevin Zegers as Alec
Jemima West as Isabelle
Robert Sheehan as Simon
Robert Maillet as Blackwell
Kevin Durand as Pangborn
Godfrey Gao as Magnus Bane
Lena Headey as Jocelyn
Harry Van Gorkum as Alaric/Werewolf
CCH Pounder as Dorothea
Jared Harris ad Hodge
Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Valentine
Aidan Turner as Luke
Based on the Best-Selling YA series by Cassandra Clare. Clary’s life is turned upside down when her mother is kidnapped and it’s revealed that she and her mother are actually shadowhunters – billed with protecting the world from downworlders such as vampires, werewolves and demons. Clary must discover her talents and save her mother.
In 2007, Cassandra Clare began writing “The Mortal Instruments”, a young adult fiction novel. The Novel would reach #8 on the New York Times Best Seller list and since then, she has written a total of five “Mortal Instruments” novels with a sixth slated for a May 2014 release.
The novels have received critical acclaim and the series has been in the New York Times Best Seller list for 102 consecutive weeks and #1 for nine weeks edging out “The Hunger Games” and “Percy Jackson and the Olympians”.
And in 2010, a film adaptation for the first novel titled “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” was announced with Harald Zwart (“The Karate Kid”, “One Night at McCool’s, “Agent Cody Banks”) as the lead director, Jessica Postigo (“Tarzan”) as the writer and actress Lily Collins (“Priest”, “The Blind Side”, “Mirror Mirror”) selected to play the lead role as Clary Fray.
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” would make over $75 million in the box office and will now be released on Blu-ray and DVD in Dec. 2013.
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is set in New York City and begins with Clary Fray (portrayed by Lily Collins) talking on the phone with her friend Simon Lewis (portrayed by Robert Sheehan, “Seasons of the Witch”, “Misfits”). Her mother Jocelyn (portrayed by Lena Headey, “Game of Thrones”, “Dredd”, “300”) and her mother’s friend Alaric (portrayed by Harry Van Gorkum) become concerned when they see a post-it note with a symbol drawn by Clary.
That night, she and Simon head to a club and when she sees a symbol on the sign above, no one but her can see it. This catches the attention of a man who tells the bouncer to allow them into the club.
While there, Clary witness the man being murdered by a mysterious man and she screams. While she can see what has happened, no one else can and this catches the attention of others.
The following morning she wakes up at her home seeing symbols all over her bedroom, as she is about to leave and meet with Simon, her mother tries to talk to her about her concerns but Clary brushes her mother off and heads to the coffee shop with Simon.
Again, she starts to see things and she sees the blonde man who killed the person at the club. She starts to freak out and when he disappears, she goes outside to look for him. The man is Jace Wyland (portrayed by Jamie Campbell Bower, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, “The Twilight Saga” films) and he explains to her of why she is able to see things and what she saw at the club was not what she really saw.
Meanwhile, back at home, her mother Jocelyn is being attacked by two men and their dog. Her mother manages to lock the bathroom door and gets through her daughter and tells her not to go home and gives her a name. After she hangs up, her mother ingests a drink from a bottle and collapses.
After hearing her mother in distress and hearing loud bangs, Clary runs back home and immediately sees her apartment destroyed. But inside is the dog who tries to attack her. While Clary is able to escape to the kitchen, the dog manages to split apart and get inside. As it tries to attack Clary, she manages to blow the dog up but suddenly sees the dog parts reattaching back together. As she tries to run, she is rescued by Jace who slays the demon dog with his sword.
Jace explains that the dog is a demon and the demons are now after her. Simon arrives and joins them and Jace takes them to his headquarters which looks like a dump but when Clary sees it, she sees a beautiful building.
Clary learns that Jace and those that live in the building are Shadowhunters, a race of humans that are passed down from a lineage of those who were born of angel blood and must secretly protect humanity from demons. The war is neverending and unfortunately, despite those with angel blood having powers, they are mortal like humans and can easily be killed by the demons.
While Jace embraces Clary being there, other Shadowhunters such as Isabelle (portrayed by Jemima West) and her brother Alec (portrayed by Kevin Zegers) are cautious, as they feel Clary will invite more trouble for them. But their leader Hodge (portrayed by Jared Harris) believes that the reason why Clary can’t remember her past is a strong spell that suppressed her memories.
And Hodge reveals to Clary that her mother is a Shadowhunter and for some reason, her mother had her memories blocked.
With the help of Jace and the other Shadowhunters, they must find out why her memory has been blocked and what her mother was preventing her of finding out.
What will Clary learn about her mother and most importantly, about herself?
VIDEO:
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is presented in 1080p High Definition. Considering how big budget this film, what stands out for this film is the costume design and the CG for the demons. Details are of the demons, vampires, werewolves are done very well. There is also great detail on closeups as you can see skin pores and sweat on the character. The film is well-saturated, skin tones are natural, black levels are nice and deep and I didn’t notice any significant banding or compression issues during my viewing of the film.
There is also a fine layer of grain (some low light scenes where there is a combination of noise and grain) and for a few segments, I did catch quite a few white specks, which was a bit surprising. But for the most part, picture quality for the overall film is good.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is presented in English and French 5.1 DTS-HD MA and an English – Audio Description Tracks. As for audio, the lossless audio does feature an immersive soundtrack when it comes to its action sequences. Because the film has its fair share of action, you can expect to hear the surround channels utilized a lot with great directional audio.
So, for a scene such as the fight against vampires, Atli Orvarsson’s upbeat synth track transitioning to symphonic music is crystal clear coming from the front and surround channels, the ambiance of vampires and screams are coming through the surround channels while you can hear Isabelle’s whip cracking from the surround channels.
Other scenes where you can hear the screeching of the bats from the surround channels or Hodge’s boomerang blade attacks circling the room.
For the most part, dialogue, music and special effects are crystal clear and the use of the surround channels were very good, wished for a bit more LFE but for the most part, “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” has a solid lossless soundtrack!
Subtitles are in English, English SDH and Spanish.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” comes with the following special features:
- Interactive Lineage Tracker – A graphic/text based FAQ that helps viewers explain the characters, the various species in the world of “The Mortal Instruments”.
- Deadly Attraction – (4:24) Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower talk about playing the characters of Clary Fray and Jace Wayland.
- Entering the Shadow World – (4:49) Cassandra Clare discusses the various specials of the Shadow World and bringing them to the big screen.
- Into the Shadows: From Book to Screen – (8:35) A featurette of bringing “City of Bones” to the big screen and what Cassandra Clare and director Harold Zwart wanted to accomplish for the film. Cassandra Clare talks about how she came up with the “Runes” and other aspects featured in the novel.
- Deleted Scenes – (4:51) Featuring a total of six deleted scenes.
- Bringing Them to Life – (6:40) Bringing Cassandra Clare’s novel to life and the importance of casting in the film. The cast talks about their characters and more.
- Descendants of the Cup – (4:37) Author Cassandra Clare and producer Robert Kulzer talk about what they imagined for the Shadow Hunters and how they are displayed onscreen. And coming up with a new fighting style for the Shadow Fighters and the amount of training the cast had to learn for the film.
- “Almost is Never Enough” – (3:45) A music video by Ariana Grande featuring Nathan Sykes.
EXTRAS:
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” comes with a Blu-ray, DVD and an UltraViolet Digital Copy code plus a slipcover.
When “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” was first announced, there was a lot of hype about how this film would be the latest “Hunger Games” and even compared to the “Twilight” series.
Personally, I feel that any similarity by these films, may it be “Percy Jackson & the Olympians” or “Chronicles of Narnia” being compared to the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” films, putting “The Mortal Instruments” films in comparison to “The Hunger Games” or “Twilight” is a lot of pressure.
And in the case for film adaptation based on the New York Best Seller novel by Cassandra Clare, which has a large following, fans want to see a story that is faithful to the novel.
And for films based on the novel, there are two ways to go. Being faithful adaptation or being something different (often to not upset the original author as it would be treated as a different type of property). In the case of “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones”, Cassandra Clare wanted a film adaptation to be made but somehow, instead of having a story that was faithful to the novel, we have a film that feels as if it was trying to incorporate elements from other films such as the “Twilight” and “Underworld” series.
A film that would focus more on the action, you felt that there was quite a bit of storyline missing.
From Clary and the character of Alec not getting along and the “vibe” that Clary felt (the film didn’t even go into how she felt the vibe), something happens to Simon but yet the movie literally skips anything that deals with the character and what happens to him.
And the depiction of the antagonist of the novel has changed in the film adaptation.
So, for those hoping for a faithful adaptation to the book may be disappointed. But because I have reviewed many films where the film adaptation and the novel are different and for the most part, know that there are authors of a novel who have accepted and some who are thrilled the film adaptation is different from the novel, if that is the direction that “The Mortal Instruments” films are going to go, then so be it.
Accept the films for what they are, as how many have accepted the many different interpretations of superhero films which are nothing like their comic book counterpart, it’s how Hollywood works to the chagrin of the hardcore fans. It’s just making sure the delivery is satisfying to the viewer and in the case of “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones”, accept the film as trying to combine action and teen romance and keep things simple, yet ambiguous.
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” for me was a film that was rather interesting for its characters, fascinating to see each character with their different fighting style but a protagonist who seems more confusing than the actual film.
I felt there were certain problems with the overall plot that never seem to be explained. I wish I could go into them without spoiling the film but Simon is a major example of a character that experiences something but the writers don’t fully go into why he has changed nor do they explain any transformation.
There is a scene in which Clary explains why Alec is constantly angry at her and out of thin air, she tells him why. Where did this come from?
But yet, despite the film’s problems, I did enjoy the film because of it’s stylish atmosphere, it’s thrilling action scenes and how dark it is with demons, vampires, werewolves. But I admit that the handling of the romantic love triangle and it’s missing plot lines make the story somewhat messy, which is a shame since so much money went into making this film and more films are expected to be made.
But with that being said, there is always hope for a better second film. If “Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back”, “X2: X-Men United” and even “Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers” have shown, a second film can definitely make a big difference if handled correctly.
As for the Blu-ray release, picture quality for “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is fantastic. Detail of the demons, transformation of the vampires look amazing. Skin colors are natural, closeups show great detail and special effects, details from costume design makeup design and the overall atmosphere thanks to the production design are all well-done and adds to the darker atmosphere of the film. Black levels are nice and deep and the film’s lossless soundtrack is immersive and surround channels being utilized for the action scenes.
“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” features a good amount of short special features and you get a Blu-ray, DVD and UltraViolet Digital Copy version of the film.
Overall, “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is another film adaptation inspired from a young adult New York Best Selling novel but instead of being faithful to it, the film adaptation becomes something different and becomes more of a popcorn adventure film and slightly confusing plot. Considering its high production and fascinating characters, the hype surrounding this film made you want more, but you feel that you got less out of the film.
Still, I’ll give this film the benefit of the doubt that I did find the dark storyline and its characters quite fascinating and I’m hoping the sequel for this film to be much better. I hope!
