“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is based on a world filled with supernatural creatures with a side of a cliché love story. The film is based off the novel with the same name by Cassandra Clare.

“City of Bones” is the first book is the five part series entitled “The Mortal Instruments”. The rest of the series will be turned into movies as well.

“The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” is directed by Harald Zwart. Zwart also directed a 2010 remake of “The Karate Kid”.

The film follows a seemingly normal teenage girl named Clary (Lily Collins) as she finds out her true identity.

Collins has acted in “The Blind Side” and “Abduction” in minor roles. I believe she performed decently in her first major role. She portrays her character well but she does not truly become the character as one would expect a more experience actress to do.

Clary’s life gets turned upside down. She meets a new guy named Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), who she really likes. Clary has to find her abducted mom and save her best friend all the while trying to figure out who she really is. Her mom was abducted by Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is seeking the Mortal Cup.

Clary and Simon (Robert Sheehan),  who is Clary’s best friend, decide to go out and have fun and end up at Club Pandemonium where Clary witnesses what she believes to be a horrible crime of someone being murdered and screams. Yet when everyone looks at her like she is crazy, she realizes that she is that only one who can see them. This is Clary’s first encounter with Shadowhunters, which are nephilim (a hybrid human race) who protect the world from demons.

The next day Clary sees one of the “killers” from the night before and follows him into an ally.

He introduces himself as Jace, a Shadowhunter, someone like herself. From here the movie really gets going and never slows down.

Clary’s mother, Jocelyn (Lena Headey), calls Clary panicked telling her not to come home and that she loves her daughter very much.

Clary goes to her small apartment only to find it in shambles and no trace of her mom. The only thing she is greeted by is demon trying to kill her. Luckily Jace comes to save her.

From here on, the movie becomes almost too confusing for anyone who did not read the book to follow it. There is so much that goes on in the movie at once that it’s hard to understand what is going on.

Almost every supernatural creature you can think of is mentioned in the movie, including: nephilim, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, witches, fairies, and demons. With all these supernatural beings and trying to figure out just what a Shadowhunter is, the movie becomes very confusing.

In the movie there are nine important characters, those include: Clary, Simon, Jace, Jocelyn, Alec (Kevin Zegers), Isabelle (Jemima West), Magnus Bane (Godfrey Gao), Hodge (Jared Harris), and Valentine.

If you did not read the book then you will not understand the importance of these characters which makes the movie more difficult to understand.

Towards the end of the movie the Institute, which is a safe place for Shadowhunters, is under attack from demons that seem to form from ravens into a black smoke with glowing red eyes and razor sharp claw hands. The demons speed to their destination in a black fog quickly forming into a more solid form.

The visual effects are amazing, they seem so real. The demons look like the sort of thing children look under the beds for.

At one moment there is a fight scene between Valentine and Jace which is amazingly choreographed. For example, Jace flips off a balcony and lands perfectly poised on the floor. The scene is great because it seems the two are dancing due to the perfect execution of each move.

The movie is great because of its visual effects and how realistic all the demons, vampires, and werewolves seemed. Yet the story line is so complex and fast-paced that anyone who did not read the book might have a hard time understanding the film.

SPOILER ALERT!

For people who read “The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones”.

The biggest things book readers worry about, is that the movie is nothing like the book. The movie is finally out!

Readers of the book keep wondering if the movie is good and by that they mean does it follow the book, and truth be told, it does for the most part, but like any book made movie it has its flaws.

The movie opens completely different than the book. Clary and Simon go to the poetry event first, then the club. When they go to the club Clary does not interact with Jace in any way, she just screams when she sees the “murder” occur.

Another thing is that the characters do not match how they are described in the book. This is disappointing to an extent when you are expecting Jace to look like an angel and Magnus does not have cat eyes, which is crucial late in the series.

The biggest complaint about the movie is that the storyline is out of order in some places and a couple minor details are changed, but other than that it is a great movie.

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Wayne Thallander

Haleigh Vinyard, senior