MORTAL INSTRUMENTS

Fantasy is perhaps my favourite genre, although even I have to concede that it is rife with clichés, and, when done badly, it can be at best laughable and at worst insulting to the audience’s intelligence. Mortal Instruments is not so bad to be laughable but it certainly is not the best example of the genre. Let’s start with the positives. Humour is one of the film’s main assets, many films of this genre get bogged down in overly serious dialogue. Some well-timed sarcastic comics peppered throughout the film keep things light and allow some of the more brazen clichés of the story to pass by more amicably. Of course it has to be said that some might not be completely intended - some lines are delivered with just that bit too much sincerity that makes the ghastly suspicion arise that this is meant to be taken completely serious. There are also several set pieces throughout that work well, a particularly effective one involves a demonic Rottweiler and another shows us a secret world below the graves of the city. These show that, either due to original novel or ingenuity on the filmmaker’s part, there was some potential in this story and that some of the lazier or borrowed plot elements (more of which in a moment) could have been left out or replaced with better plotlines. The plot itself is, for the most part, stock and trade post-twilight fantasy with our heroine being pulled into a strange world populated by fashion models who hunt demons. Right in the middle of this blandness however there is actually a very effective plot twist that not only serves to liven the story up (as well as wake the audience up) but changes the dynamics between several characters in an interesting way. The film’s main failing is our heroine Clary (Lilly Collins) she is (some inventive demon slaying at the start aside) an observer in what’s meant to be her story. She tags along being told this and that and we keep hearing how she’s the key to everything - but it’s like the film makers only remembered this in the third act. In fact her main choice in the film doesn’t seem to be how to find the mortal cup and save the world from evil, but rather whether she’ll chose Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower) or Simon (Robert Sheehan). I will give the film some credit here as to the outcome of this little love triangle - which is a little more original than most. Others in the cast appear to be under-used, Jonathan Rhys-Myers gives a good turn as the villainous Valentine but is missing for most of the film and feels like he could have made a much better impact if used more. To be fair a lot of the film’s main problems come from external factors, the main one being that it is rather late to the game in its field; the Harry Potter movies have been and gone and the Twilight series is all wrapped up. So when werewolves and vampires show up and our heroes seek refuge in a giant castle that only certain special people can see the audience could be forgiven for coming away with a sense of deja vu. Now, of course, being based on a book series they are constrained by what is in the source material but they might have tried to steer the film in a different direction so as to avoid the above comparisons (not only have they failed to do this but they seem to want to encourage it). FINAL VERDICT – 4/10 It really raises its game in the last act but mostly the film plods along. If they get the go ahead to adapt more the series it is possible they could learn from these mistakes and improve it greatly