Script + Plot - 6
Characters - 6
Actors - 7
Soundtrack - 7
Visuals + Sounds - 9
Editing + Cinematography - 6
Directing - 6
Effect - 5
Raw Overall Score - 6.5
Personal Overall Score - 6.3
Brief Overall Review: The movie started out incredibly rushed but after about the first 40 minutes or so the pace slowed down and things were developed and it actually became entertaining. It wasn't a great movie but it certainly wasn't a bad one, it was cheesy, predictable and also eye rollingly unbelievable at times but enjoyable during that one watch. The fantasy world we were drawn into was interesting although quite unoriginal, however the actors were generally great and made-do with their average scripts; the visual effects were quite stunning.
Script + Plot - This movie was a screen adaptation of a popular young adult fiction series 'The Mortal Instruments', I had read the first book of this series 'City Of Bones', I can first of all say that it's not my type of book and the only reason I finished reading it was because it was given to me as a birthday gift so I felt as if it would be rude to not read it. However being unimpressed with the book, I was strangely intrigued with the trailer of the movie and was excited to see how they would adapt and express everything in the movie. The main plot (via IMDb): When her mother disappears, Clary Fray learns that she descends from a line of warriors who protect our world from demons. She joins forces with others like her and heads into a dangerous alternate New York called Downworld. The plot and also script as you may hear most people complaining about isn't particularly original, and in case you did not know the books were actually originally conjured from Harry Potter fanfiction, so there are elements in the movie similar to certain movies/tv series such as Harry Potter, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Twilight etc. However the plot is an interesting one and the world created should grab your attention, unfortunately this is where the script comes in to ruin everything. The script for this movie was just plain average if not below average. Sure there were many things to be explained in the movie and sure many moments and lines to cram in, but that was the problem, everything was crammed in, in a really bad way, something that was done badly in this movie was the actual adaptation aspect, the script didn't change in a good way from the books at all. For that I give it a 6.
Characters - I was a little upset with the handling of characters in this movie, some were handled really well or at least to an extent whilst others were practically dismissed. I felt like Jace, Simon and Clary were the most focused on characters and they had the limelight, and I guess being some of the main characters naturally they would; however as someone who had read the first book I thought it was disappointing that Alec and Izzy barely had character developments or even just a moment where we learnt something of interest about their characters. Alec was just made to look like a jealous whiny boy, and Izzy as nothing of any relevance. Yet again as I had read 'City Of Bones' I had not liked any character apart from Alec so was quite disappointed at the way his character was handled, especially because in the books he wasn't as mean as he was jealous, he was generally meant to be kind-hearted. Another 6 I'm afraid.
Actors - I have to admit a lot of the cast did a great job, Lily Collins worked well with what she had, and managed to be quite natural, Robert Sheehan as expected did a great job, Jamie Campbell-Bower was unexpectedly really good. Not many people stood out in a bad way, Jonathan Rhys Meyers was disappointing as Valentine in my opinion and so was Aidan Turner and Jared Harris at times. Also a lot of actors lacked genuine chemistry in scenes together and in that aspect were not able to convey realistic connections on screen, however that could easily have had something to do with the way the scenes were cut and how fast it all went, as well as their soulless scripts. I'll go with a 7.
Soundtrack - So I don't have much to say for the soundtrack, I can barely remember anything about it, it wasn't special, considering that it didn't stand out, then it wasn't good nor bad. Demi Lovato is one of my favourite artists and hearing one of her tracks used relevantly during a scene I was quite pleased and obviously did some singing along during that scene in the cinema, following that I give this a 7 for the soundtrack.
Visuals + Sounds - This was by far the most impressive thing about the movie to me, I absolutely adored the demons and their designs, each type of demon was quite gorgeous to look at from my perspective, all the combinations of lights and darkness in the movie was brilliant and I have to say I especially enjoyed the black demons with fiery red streaks on them, you know, the things that looked a bit like dementors. From what I recall the sound effects were quite spot on too, I give this section a 9.
Editing + Cinematography - I can't decide if it was the editing or the directing that was at fault with how rushed the movie was but I'm going to bring it down to editing, this movie was not very well edited and it showed, the whole rushing of the first 40 minutes was quite unforgivable and gave an awkward start to the movie, not to mention that predictable shots and editing styles were used for this movie. I don't have much to say really but the movie just didn't flow well and a lot of it had to do with how and when the scenes were cut, and it just all felt bland. A 6 for me.
Directing - The directing for this movie was just as bad as the editing really, the director, Harald Zwart I believe didn't seem to have a direct vision for this movie in my opinion. Obviously when following a book you have to take the essence of the book and reflect that in the movie, I believe that half the reason his directing did not have a good effect was that the books themselves had little direction and little vision, having read the first book and not liking it I can seriously say that I didn't really understand where it was going or what the aim was and that's exactly what the movie expressed. I won't fault the director for this completely, however he could have made some changes here and there and improved on what I believe to be a just below average book series. 6 for directing.
Effect - This was the most disappointing category of them all, literally an hour after watching the movie I had already forgotten majority of what happened, and images flashed through my head but I could barely connect them to important events. If you can't remember a movie you watched that recently then it really was not worth remembering. The fact that I had read the first book makes it even worse. The movie had no relevant message as far as I could tell, it just showed us a complicated mess of a storyline and expected us to accept it as brilliance, except it wasn't. It was an average movie that had no effect on me whatsoever, any scene that could potentially have had an effect on me was either quickly cut short or spoiled by a cheesy line or a new irrelevant event/problem. I would never really consider re-watching the movie. A measly 5 for audience & entertainment effect.
Who should watch it?
If you've read any novel by Cassandra Clare and enjoyed it, if you like movies that transport you to a different world, if you're a fan of Lily Collins, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers or Jamie Campbell Bower, If you like dark young adult movies, if you like all things supernatural, if you want to watch a supernatural movie that doesn't feature vampires or werewolves so heavily, if you've been a fan of previous young adult supernatural movies.
Interesting
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