The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones Review

One has to remain open to these things. One does - one day, they'll make a good'un, and you kinda have to be there to see that when it happens.

Okay, wow, way to give the game away early, Ross. Fuck it, have this, I'm putting my feet up:

 

Oh...you're still here. Fine, I'll write something...Jeez, you guys are pushy.

So I was clued into this by a friend who's read the books - according to both her, and the literary community at large, they're actually a pretty neat riff on the whole 'urban fantasy' thing, and were begging to have a movie made out of them. I can't honestly comment on the books - I've not read 'em, and I'm assured that they're 'completely bloody different!' from this trainwreck, so let's proceed to verbally beat the shit out of it, shall we?

I suppose the most disappointing thing is that there was almost certainly a good film to be made from the script as is. A few cheesy (and we're talking Camembert levels of stink here) lines and some braindead decision-making aside, the story is actually surprisingly solid: in a modern world where 'every story you ever heard is true', there exists a breed of human known as the Shadow Hunter, who spend their waking hours fighting the unwinnable, but essential war against the forces of darkness. Clary is not one of these people - but she can see them, even when they use runes tattooed onto their skin to turn invisible. As she tries to figure out why, she becomes embroiled in a plot from within to undo the hunters, and their hidden-in-plain-sight base, The Sanctuary.

It's at the very least interesting on its own terms - the mythology surrounding it in particular is most intriguing. It's a great shame that the execution is a stumbling, shambolic mess.

This is almost entirely down to director Harald Zwart. The cast is decent, the production values solid and the script, despite the aforementioned stinkers, is a surprisingly tight adaptation - there's even some pretty decent special effects thrown into the mix. But Zwart botches it - it's clear that the extent of his familiarity with the fantasy genre is that it exists, and is mildly popular just now. There's not a single ounce of flair, style or substance in any of the framing, fight choreography or staging. Battles lack any sense of tension or threat. Romance comes off as dumb and corny as shit because of a soundtrack that's either intrusively, obnoxiously obvious, or as dull and pointless as the staging.

Worse, Zwart fails to recognise when the characters he's marshalling are being utterly, utterly stupid. Case in point? Our heroine develops a power that can freeze adversaries in time - but rather than butchering the demons where they're stuck with their fancy demon-slaying weaponry, they move through the pack of claw-based death and leave them there. We're then supposed to care when the creatures reanimate themselves after the spell wears off, and murder a bunch of werewolves. You do know swords have unlimited ammo, right guys?

The only thing that saves it from being thrown in the same bin as AvP2 and Battlefield Earth is that admid the turgidity, there're a few few-and-far-between moments where the strength of the story and mythology shine through. A flame-thrower that appears to fire holy napalm? Awesome. Mozart was actually a musical engineer who developed sequences of chords that sounded lovely to humans, but like nails on chalkboard to demons? Genius (even if Clary brazenly forgets this fact a mere 8 hours after she learned it). But as said, there's just not enough of them present for the film to pull itself from the mire. The cast are actually also do admirably considering the non-entity at the helm - Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell Bower were perfect castings, if the fan art I've googled is to be believed, and Robert Sheehan (of Misfits fame) sports an impressively honed American accent, and a decent performance to boot. In fact, his part of the film is the only one that's not hideously mishandled, and there's no doubt that it's down to his chemistry with Collins that this works.

It's just a massive shame all round - this had the promise to be the anti-Twilight, a Shadowrun for tweens. Alas, what we've got is a watered-down pap - an incredibly basic film that's intended to sell its crappy teen-pop soundtrack and pictures of the admittedly highly attractive leads. Nothing more. Nothing about it works, it's only sporadically enjoyable, and if you've ever seen a single action-fantasy movie before this one, you'll facepalm at least three times in its bloated run-time. Unless you're interested in your eyeballs attempting to escape from your face in desperation, avoid.

  

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Chronicle Review

Found footage is a gimmick that, for a lot of people, does not bode well. Representative of either extreme, vomit-inducing shakey-cam, or just general rubbishness - and yes, I'm looking at you, Blair Witch. But there are those of us who have a penchant for first-person shenanigans - and we've been richly rewarded for our tolerance with excellent movies such as Cloverfield and the first Paranormal Activity. And it's this subset of the population that will almost immediately fall in love with Chronicle.

Telling the story of an unpopular kid named Andrew, who acquires a 'old' video camera to not only create a barrier between himself and the real world, but also to document the systematic abuse that he suffers at the hands of his father. The trials of high school life inevitably get in the way, though, and he, his cousin and the most popular kid at school find themselves in a strange underground cave, where a glowing rock formation pulses with energy, and subsequently knocks them out. They wake up above ground, with no recollection of what happened - but whatever it was, they now have telekinetic abilities, and the film explores quite what the average high-school student might do in this predicament.

For reasons that'll become clear further down, let's start with heaping the praise on it. 

Story-wise, it's not the most original premise, but what it does have is a fresh take on the usual formula of the every-man superhero story. It's a flipside of Kick-Ass and Super's coin - or  rather, it strips the usual superhero story of the 'hero' part, rather than the 'super' part. Filtering this through the rogues gallery of the American high-school is both ingenious and a no-brainer, and whilst it's been done before, in a year where Marvel and DC will be showboating with their primary film franchises, this is refreshingly small and simple, with a character-driven story that pushes forward at exactly the right pace. Story-turns - super-power granting rocks aside - never seem contrived, and the dialogue crackles with authenticity.

It's also wonderfully performed by the core ensemble - with Michael B Jordan (of The Wire fame) putting in a particularly good performance, turning the popular, class-president archetype into an intriguing study in empathy: his Steve's ingratiation with Dane DeHaan and Alex Russell's losers not simply down to their single shared experience, but as the act of a genuinely kind individual. DeHaan escalates his performance as Andrew remarkably, and whilst Russell, playing the main character's stoner cousin, takes a little while to get warmed up, by the end, you're hardly holding it against him.

So, all this praise under advisement, you can now understand my full meaning when I say that somewhere in here, there is a far, far better movie. The sad fact of the matter is that what prevents it from better is also its core gimmick - the found footage stylings. Had they transitioned between found footage and more traditionally cinematic shots in the manner of District 9, this could've been genuinely one of the best superhero movies in years. 

There are attempts at this towards the end, but it never actually emerges from within the found footage box, and because of this, they have to come up with more and more contrived reasons to have cameras in the frame. Don't get me wrong - the manner in which they tackle it is ingenious, and there is a commentary about quite how often, in the digital age, there is someone with a camera watching you, but the sense of contrivance never goes away. There's also a bit of awkwardness in the finale thanks to this, where there's a series of transitions between cameras in the action and the news helicopter that's trying to document it. The odd shift in audio dynamic as the view flicks between these two points mars what is otherwise an exhilarating set piece.

There're a few moments of odd dialogue that clunk a little, a couple of dubious directorial decisions and a few ropey special effects scattered about, but these aren't really noticeable thanks to the lightning fast pacing. The plot is a little sign-posted in terms of predictability, and it's incredibly streamlined, with a run-time of a mere 83 minutes. It doesn't make it any less satisfying, thanks to the relatively fresh angle, but a cynic might brand it simplistic were he to skip breakfast the day he saw it.

All-in-all, it's tough to criticise something that's as technically proficient, visually engaging and thoroughly entertaining as this. The previous criticisms have been pondered for a good while before committing to t'internet, and even now I'm struggling to really justify them. It's a real cinema movie too- sparklingly clear visuals combining with a soundtrack whose bass rattles bones, engrossing you in the experience. There is that niggling sensation that a better movie could've been made given more money and more time, but it's just not enough to derail it. A fresh, darkly intriguing take on the superhero formula, and a great action movie to boot, we can only hope round two is bigger and bolder - because what a treat we'd be in for.