Monday, September 23, 2013

{A Kelly M Review} My Very Truthful and Spoilery Review of the City of Bones Movie

Movie: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Rated: 4/5

Viewed: Three times.










Okay so I am finally writing my review for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones movie. Let me tell you that for most of the movie I am actually really happy with what they produced. It was very well done. The special effects and the world creating really blew my mind. The acting really was superb in my opinion. I will give you guys my thoughts on most of the actors, so forgive me if it gets boring but as you all know, this is my favourite book series, so I like talking about everything pertaining it!

Let’s start with Clary. Lily literally embodied the character of Clary. She did such a spectacular job and really honed in on what Clary really is about, even to the last minuscule expression. I see people complaining about the hair colour and Lily’s eyebrows and I’m just here like, seriously? Get over it people, there is nothing wrong with her eyebrows. I LOVE that she embraces who and what she is and does not try to conform to what society expects her to look like. She is such a wonderful role model for younger girls and all of us should strive to accept ourselves like she has accepted herself. As for Clary’s hair colour, everybody has their own vision, personally, I liked this look better and it is what i normally imagined when reading, but that’s just me. Hair colour does not equate acting ability, remember that folks.

Jace Wayland. Can I just say, BY THE ANGEL (yes I am very geeky, but I think we all are). Jamie is Jace in every way possible. It was like he was born to play this role. The sarcasm, arrogance, everything just seemed so natural and the fact that he did all his stunts himself, that just screams Jace. So when I still see people saying that he is too ugly or he wasn’t Jace at all, it seriously leaves me dumbstruck. Yes Jamie isn’t your normal type of good looking but come on people, the dude is not ugly. He might not be your Jace but he is the one chosen to portray him. None of these actors are the characters I imagine in my head and they never will be, but as long as they do the essence of the characters justice, then I’m happy.

Simon. I loved Robbie’s portrayal of Simon, it really was done perfectly. His facial expressions when he was around Jace was simply golden, they cracked me up every single time. Oh and the scene where he tells Clary he loves her, almost brought me to tears, I was like, “AWWWWWWWW poor baby!!!!” He did the role of ‘confused mundane’ justice. I literally could not have asked for a better Simon. But am I the only one who would have been okay with the fact if Robbie just kept his accent and made Simon Irish, because sweet Lord does he have a yummy accent.

Alec. Okay so I am willing to admit that I was not on board with the whole Kevin Zegers as Alec thing. He just seemed too old and just didn’t scream Alec to me. Boy oh boy did I eat my words. I didn’t like Alec from the start and I still do not like him, I know shoot me, and Kevin just reinforced my dislike of the guy. He did Alec so perfectly, even though he didn’t say much. Now that to me is acting. If you can bring a character to life by only body language and facial expressions, then I shall bow down to your awesomeness. The one thing I did not like though was the fact that Alec didn’t try to hide himself from everyone because honestly he is so afraid of people noticing that he is gay, that he hides behind his clothes and his hair. He tries to make himself seem very ordinary. I did not get that.

Isabelle. We haven’t seen much of Jemima because she had been filming other movies during the promotion so I didn’t get a real feel for her but when she walked into Pandemonium I was entranced!  The confidence and the whole “using her beauty as a whip” really showed. She literally embodied bad ass femaleness. I was so wowed by her. PERFECTNESS PERSONIFIED!!!!

Magnus. Okay people might not like this but I was not wowed by Godfrey’s portrayal of Magnus. It lacked so much. He just seemed like a normal dude. There was no oomf, no pazazz, no flamboyance, no sass. There just was no Magnus. He wasn’t sarcastic at all. His acting was good but his understanding of Magnus as a whole just fell short. Magnus is one of my ultimate favourite characters of all time, so I was so disappointed. Oh and he should have kept his accent. It would’ve added to Magnus’s exotic ambience.

Valentine. THE HAIR, OH MY GOD THE HAIR!!!!!! Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a great actor and very very yummy looking but even though he seemed dangerous, it didn’t feel like Valentine to me. Firstly, Valentine’s hair colour is actually part of the plot of the movie because how are they going to do the Sebastian thing? I don’t get it, and what was up with the Jamican weave? Valentine is poised and stylish and calm and cool and collected. He isn’t like BOOM IN YOUR FACE crazy you know? His crazy is on the inside, not for the world to see. So I didn’t much care for his portrayal of Mr V.

Jocelyn and Luke I’ll do together since we didn’t really see that much of the. I thought they did the roles justice, although I didn’t feel a connection between them. Jocelyn was seriously fierce with the whole kitchen fighting scene, just wowza and I loved the part where Luke fights the demons in the in the institute. It showed his old shadowhunter abilities.

Hodge. He was done splendidly by Jared Harris. I really felt for him and the curse and he appeared as the Hodge I saw in my head. The way he observed Clary and the way he was with Valentine, he really showed that Hodge honestly is afraid of Valentine and that’s why he did what he did.

Pangborn and Blackwell. They were really funny but sometimes I felt they went a bit overboard you know? They didn’t seem menacing enough in my eyes.

Okay so now I will talk about what I didn’t like. Let me start with the soundtrack, though the actual score was Harry Potter quality in my opinion, the actual soundtrack was seriously horrible. It did not give the feel of this dark shadowhunter world. I’m sorry but I just do not imagine pop songs when I read the books. It has more of a rock, darker feel to it. They shouldn’t just create a soundtrack because it is mainstream and then more people will like it. It should capture the feel of the story and it just didn’t.

The script...yeah um Jessica Postigo really did a poor job with the script. None of the mythologies, except the existence of shadowhunters, were explained. She didn’t explain the Silent Brothers or the Downworlders, the Accords, the weapons, anything really. And honestly that would’ve maybe added like 20 minutes to the movies. It isn’t that much of a time issue to have a 2h30min movie. My biggest issue was the fact that Madame Dorethea didn’t turn into Abbadon, I mean honestly? That was such a major part of the book and it was awesome! That scene wasn’t nearly as dire as it was in the book and THEN SHE WALKED OUT INTO THE SUNLIGHT!!! WHAT THE HELL!! The other thing I didn't like, the institute was built around the portal...oh really? I thought Henry created the portal with Magnus. That was just so inaccurate. I didn’t appreciate that. And Clary has the cup in the end, not Valentine...um that is the plot of the whole first three books completely done away with. The last thing was the fact that Valentine almost killed Jace. Valentine is supposed to try and get Jace over to his side, not make it so that he hates him to the point of no return?

Please don't take my review as something bad or negative. I loved the movie, I really did. I just had a few issues, but those really were the only ones. The rest of the movie I really loved, and though, those issues are present it din't take away from me loving the movie.

Other than these few issues I really did love the movie and I am so grateful that it was made. Now,SS I just hope we get City of Ashes. If we do not, I will go into a serious state of depression.


2 comments:

  1. Nice honesty. I didn't like the movie as much as you did, but I'm not a movie person in general. The special effects were amazing though. At one point I had to look away and was hiding because it was gross, and I never thought myself to be squeamish. You liked the acting and actors way more than I did... but I guess that's super subjective.

    -P.E. @ The Sirenic Codex

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  2. The Mortal Instruments are next on my list to listen to at work thanks to this movie. They'd been on my peripheral radar before the trailers for it came out. However, after the (in my opinion) disaster of Beautiful Creatures, I was really hesitant to read it first then see the movie. I can usually separate movies and books better if I see the movie first.

    There were a lot of things I really liked, but I got the overall feeling that the movie only scratched the surface, that the world was bigger than we were getting to see. I <3ed Jace (but I've had a thing for Jamie since he debuted in Sweeney Todd) and Lily as Clary really impressed me in general. Her reaction when Simon told her he loved her was so completely genuine--such a beautiful piece of acting.

    Magnus was actually painful for me--even having not read the books. I have to respectfully disagree with his acting--at least in the scene where he's explaining casting the memory spell on Clary. It was so straightforward and dully delivered it actually yanked me out of the movie. So disappointing after such a fun entrance (what with both Clary and Jace thanking him for calling them hot, and he means Alec). It felt like someone completely disinterested was delivering the exposition.

    And that twist, the pain between Jace and Clary was so beautifully played... just had to love it.

    Over all, looking forward to the books. ^_^

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