Her best friend Simon (Robert Sheehan) isn’t too keen on Clary hanging around with these seemingly dangerous people, but Clary finds herself drawn to them, especially the enigmatic Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower, Sweeney Todd). Jace’s companions, Isabelle (Jemima West) and her brother Alec, (Kevin Zegers) are none too pleased when Jace brings the confused and frightened pair of "mundanes" (average humans) into the hidden world of the Shadowhunters. They explain that their jobs are not only to protect the world from demons, but also to protect the three Mortal Instruments, one of which is the cup that the angel Raziel gave to his children. It is a very powerful object and a dangerous Shadowhunter named Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors) has been hunting the cup for years, even as Jocelyn has been protecting it. Even though they are putting themselves in harm’s way, Jace, Isabelle, Alec, Clary and even Simon must do whatever it takes to locate the cup and rescue Jocelyn from wherever she is being kept. They may find the cup and Jocelyn, but they just might find love along with way, along with a whole slew of information they never wanted to know.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is a fun action movie with some good fight scenes. It falls squarely into the Twilight category with the all-important components of paranormal teen romance, danger and yes, even a love triangle, but I enjoyed the movie. The actors played their parts well and had good chemistry, even though some of the teen angst-ridden lines were a bit clunky. CCH Pounder was especially enjoyable as Clary’s psychic neighbor, but everyone was believable.
There are a nice handful of special features including deleted scenes, a music video, five featurettes, plus a lineage tracker, which helps if you are new to the series. Quite a few of the special features are Blu-ray exclusives as well, so keep that in mind when deciding which media to purchase. The movie looked quite good on Blu-ray and from watching the featurettes, I learned that they utilized as many practicals as they could to give it a more realistic feel. Those scenes that were clearly CG, like the one with the portal, looked really good though.
This movie isn’t going to appeal to you if you don’t already enjoy fantasy films, but those that do will probably really like it. I never found myself aggravated at the attractive cast because they didn’t seem so one dimensional like the characters from Twilight. If you are already a fan of the books, you’ll already have this one on your Christmas list, but if you enjoy fantasy action flicks that aren’t completely drenched with teen love, check out The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
