Fantasy movie lovers across the nation helped “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” climb to the top three movies at the box office the weekend after it was released.
In its first week and a half in theaters, “The Mortal Instruments” has grossed an estimate of $18 million, almost a third of the movie’s total production cost, according to Box Office Mojo.
The film stars Lily Collins, who some may recognize from “The Blind Side” and “Mirror Mirror,” as protagonist Clary Fray, a girl from New York City. Clary’s average life takes an unexpected turn when she sees a group of strangely dressed teenagers only she can see kill a boy at a nightclub.
Clary later finds out the group of teenagers is called Shadowhunters and are trained to kill demons and other demonic creatures.
Collins shows character development throughout the movie as Clary grows from a scared, careless young girl into a brave Shadowhunter.
Jamie Campbell Bower plays Shadowhunter Jace Wayland. Bower has been seen before in movies such as “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.”
Bower plays Jace Wayland as a dark, brooding and mysterious boy with a touch of sass. His character choice has received some criticism as it is portrayed a bit differently in the book series written by Cassandra Clare.
Quite a bit of chemistry appears between Clary and Jace throughout the movie, which may or may not be due to the relationship off set between Bower and Collins.
Also notable to the series is Simon, played by Robert Sheehan, who stays by Clary’s side throughout the movie as her best friend. Simon is awkward, sarcastic and caring, which has both positive and negative effects.
One of the most praised elements of “The Mortal Instruments” is the graphics and special effects. As the movie’s genre is fantasy, this element is incredibly important.
In order to create the magical and fantastical elements of “The Mortal Instruments,” these graphics go above and beyond what readers of the books could imagine and prove to be spectacular.
In regards to the plot of the movie, mixed reviews come about. Of course a movie can’t have every single detail that a book has, but important details were left out to the point where people who hadn’t read the book would need things explained by people who had read the book.
If some of these things were explained at the beginning of the next movie as an intro, this problem could be remedied very easily. Otherwise, in order to completely understand the movie, viewers will also have to read the book series.
For a wide enough viewing audience, it’s important to understand not everyone is going to do that.
That’s not to say that everything in a book needs to be included in a movie adaptation, but leave in information that is important to the plot line.
Overall, “The Mortal Instruments” qualifies as a decent movie. Better movies have been made, but then again, so have worse.
“The Mortal Instruments” currently sits at No. 7 at the box office and is playing at Cinemark Tinseltown theater on upper Peach Street.
KHADIJA DJELLOULI
