The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
It's like, who even cares?
This movie was clearly regurgitated junk designed cynically to appeal to tween girls whose economic presence has suddenly been revealed to corporate bean counters. The Harry Potter, "Twilight" and "Hunger Games" films have all set box office records, each one encountering larger and larger popularity and social media presence. Naturally, every similar book property has been pumped out in hopes of grabbing those series' success.
Most, including "The Mortal Instruments," turn out awful.
Love triangle? Check! Reappropriated Judeo-Christian imagery? Check! Mysterious mentors and obvious betrayals? Check! Great actors in awful roles just to get a paycheck? Check!
Look, I watched "The Mortal Instruments" because I've recently been introduced, by both my girlfriend and the experience of working in a bookstore, to "The Hunger Games." I have my beefs with "The Hunger Games," mostly runtime and story logic, but I can ultimately understand the franchise's appeal. Katniss is a character written with some variety: She's not inherently heroic, doesn't really stand for anything besides her family and is consumed by concern over boys but can occasionally stop and play action hero. She's relatively varied. She has some progression across the course of the films. Although her emotional experience is too far from my own for me to really relate, I appreciate why other people do and, in following her adventures, I realized: This genre is foreign to me. I should get more experience in it.
What a dumb thought.
When I think about how much money I make per hour — like $9.50 or something because you make nothing working at a bookstore (the wonderful, amazing job is the true payment) — and then I think about how much a ticket to this cost ($10) and then the running time (two hours), I realize watching this movie cost me three hours of my life. One of those hours was spent at work, unaware of the fact those 60 minutes were devoted to gaining entry to a theater where I would watch perfectly capable actors recite junk dialogue about shallow, troped-up imagery.
Why do I keep doing this to myself? Why don't I trust my instincts and just avoid this stuff?
While writing this review, I ate two cookies. I ate a cookie for breakfast. I ate five cookies for breakfast yesterday. I really love cookies, but they're awful for me and negatively impacting my health. I should stop eating them so often. I know this. I know this.
In a way, watching awful films like "The Mortal Instruments," movies I know will be awful, they're a lot like that. I know I should stop watching them. I know this. I know this.
This movie made me existentially depressed.
"The Mortal Instruments" is available on Blu-ray and DVD on December 3 and features a host of extras.
Film: 1 Yap Extras: 3 Yaps