The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones Is Poised To Reinvigorate The Young Adult Fantasy Genre And End Summer Blockbuster Season Big!

The Good: Concept, Special effects, Acting
The Bad: Moments of character
The Basics: The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones lives up to those hoping for a strong and compelling fantasy film, though those looking for something truly dark and adult will find it a little lacking.


Every year for the last several, Summer Blockbuster Season has been characterized by several predictable and consistent trends. The major studios release the big special effect-driven movies fast and at calculated intervals to dominate the box office for one or two weeks before the next predicted (and usually) sure thing knocks it off its pedestal. It is not a time of year known for high concept films and by August, the big studios have gotten their year’s worth of ticket sales out of the consumers before hitting the September Slump and then (increasingly earlier each year) Oscar Pandering Season. The August pre-slump is usually the time of year that the studios dump out the comedies and one or two movies that they did not quite believe in enough to release early in Summer Blockbuster Season to even attempt to compete against the big studio releases.

It is there, in the time frame usually reserved for raucous comedies and romantic comedies that make for obvious date fare for the crowds of college-going students returning to campus, that Sony and Screen Gems will release The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones. The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones is based upon a young adult fantasy book (which became a series) and in the interest of full disclosure, I have not read the book series, so this is a review solely of the movie with no basis for comparison. There seems to be a serious bias (in the media) against the young adult fantasy genre and earlier this year the genre took a hit when Beautiful Creatures (reviewed here!) and The Host (reviewed here!) both underperformed. Fortunately for the fans of great cinema, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones - despite pulling some punches, especially on the gore front – is a more engaging and mature outing than this year’s early genre flops. In fact, despite the love triangle element that might inspire some comparison to The Twilight Saga (reviewed here!), The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones is more like Constantine (reviewed here!) meets Underworld (reviewed here!) than a sappy romance. In fact, to its credit, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones carefully promises not to pursue the same mundane formula in the sequels by the resolution to this film, which is nice.

Clary Fray is a normal young woman living in New York City (except that, despite her youth, she is able to go clubbing without getting stopped, which given how young she looks forces one of the first acts of suspension of disbelief in the audience) with no clue that she is different from anyone else in the world. However, one night at a club, she watches as Jace Wayland kills another person at the club. She is baffled that no one else in the club, especially security, notices Jace and the next day, Clary confronts him. Her attempt to learn more is cut short by a phone call from her mother that sends her rushing home to discover her mother gone and a demon there. She is attacked by the demon and following the conflict, she is brought to the realm of the Shadowhunters, a world concealed from mundane eyes by a glamour.

The Shadowhunters, supernatural magic users who are fighting against demons here on Earth, are fascinated by Clary as she (if she truly is a mundane human) should not be able to see them. Through the intervention of Brooklyn’s High Warlock, Magnus Bane, Clary and her allies – her friend Simon, Jace, and the Lightwoods, Alec and Isabella – learn that there is a mental block in Clary’s head and that she may have the Sight, due in part to her mother being a Shadowhunter. As Jace and Clary get closer, Simon becomes jealous and hurt, they begin a search for Clary’s mother, Jocelyn, whose abduction seems to be tied to the mysterious Mortal Cup, a Shadowhunter artifact of great power. But Jocelyn’s hiding of the Mortal Cup makes it clear to Clary and her allies that the Shadowhunter who wants the Cup, the presumed-dead Valentine Morgenstern, may have the most sinister of motives.

The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones works as well as it does because introduces the viewer to the universe of the Shadowhunters, demons, and supernatural creatures at the same time as Clary gets her education in the same. While such a formula could be a disastrous excuse for clunky exposition, director Harald Zwart rather effectively uses the film medium to show the viewer the world as Clary sees it. Following the murder at the club her world literally changes overnight into one populated by creatures and concepts that she has not been exposed to before. The result is an unsettling and abrupt change in Clary’s life. Zwart has that world unfold in a way that feels surprisingly organic; Clary starts to see the Shadowhunters and demons all around her and then enters the hidden world from which the movie derives its title.

To its credit, despite having a number of similarities to Beautiful Creatures (up to and including the token wizened black woman who seems to have all the answers about the protagonist’s past), The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones feels remarkably fresh because of the whirlwind pace and the essential quest in the movie. Clary is a young woman in the process of becoming. At fifteen/sixteen, it is entirely natural that she would still be emotionally tied to her mother, especially considering that she has been raised without a father. Losing her mother becomes a very real and relatable trauma for her and recovering her mother roots her in a realistic goal amid all of the supernatural creatures and settings that suddenly surround her. So, despite how painfully good looking everyone is in this version of New York City (and the supernatural underworld there), the essential character struggle for the film is a compelling one.

Furthermore, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones might well enhance detractor’s opinions of the genre because the essential conflict is not one of “which boy will Clary fall in love with?” While there are romantic entanglements and crushes abound, the focus of The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones remains tightly on Clary learning about the hidden world around her and desperately searching for her mother. Surrounding those two things, Clary learns very important information about her past and is teased with information about the artifacts like the Mortal Cup.

Clary makes for an initially interesting protagonist, which helps make The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones almost instantly engaging. While she makes some foolish mistakes (rushing into her home when the door has been broken off might play well for the hero in a film, but seems utterly uncharacteristic for a New Yorker!), they are easily excused by her age, as is her naiveté in her relationships. While there is an ample supporting cadre of characters, Simon and Jace are nowhere near as interesting as Clary and Valentine, who is set up to be the series antagonist.

The special effects in The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones are rendered in a satisfying and breathtaking way. More than any of the other fantasy films based on young adult fantasy, setting plays an integral part in The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones and Zwart and his team use the effects remarkably well to create that setting. Between the make-up and the sets (given the scope of so many of them, most are digital) Zwart and the special effects team make a fantastic world seem entirely realistic and most of The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones looks and feels like the viewer is immersed in a real world, instead of watching computer generated special effects creatures and places.

On the acting front, Jonathan Rhys Meyers rules his scenes as Valentine Morgenstern. Meyers manages not to make Morgenstern seem like the typical over-the-top villain and he plays the role with enough ambiguity to leave the viewer wondering if his character’s reasons for abducting Jocelyn are truly entirely sinister in nature. More than anything else, Meyers plays Morgenstern as a credible leader. It seems reasonable that others might follow Morgenstern and willingly do his bidding; that comes more from the on-screen charisma of Jonathan Rhys Meyers than from the lines the character delivers. For their brief time on screen, Lena Headey and CCH Pounder both make their characters (Jocelyn Fray and Madame Dorthea, respectively) interesting enough that we care about their fate and believe the information they provide.

The real surprise is how good Lily Collins is. It was easy to write off Collins in the wake of Mirror Mirror (reviewed here!), but in The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, like her character, she comes into her own. Collins manages to walk the fine line of making Clary seem surprised and unsettled by the world opening up around her without appearing absolutely stupid. Unlike many young actresses today, Collins emotes quite well without leaving her eyes wide and lips spread (seriously, what is the recent trend in actresses never closing their mouths?! That’s not a conversation thing, either, look at Mary-Louise Parker, she seems to have pioneered a whole brainless performance style that has been immediately adopted by directors everywhere who unfathomably believe that it says something about the character or sex appeal of the actress when they never appear on screen with their mouth fully closed.). Instead, she emotes realistically and makes Clary seem alternatively shaken and determined. As a real plus, Collins seems completely comfortable working with digital characters and settings, always landing the eyelines her character needs to be looking in. The result is that Collins helps sell the character and reality of The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones and the viewer comes to care about Clary (which is a big thing for me as a viewer who has absolutely no inherent investment in the characters having not read the books!).

Ultimately, Sony and Screen Gems have the chance to have the last laugh on Summer Blockbuster Season. Going into the September Slump, they provide a film worth seeing and worth talking about, which ought to make The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones a breakout beyond the already-existing fan base.

For other fantasy films, please check out my reviews of:
Labyrinth
The Last Airbender
Hammer Of The Gods

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the film reviews I have written!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Surprisingly Entertaining, The Pink Panther 2Is Better Than Steve Martin's First Outing As Inspector Clouseau!

The Good: Funny, Moments of performance
The Bad: Predictable plot and character arcs.
The Basics: Actually funny and charming, The Pink Panther 2 reminds viewers that Steve Martin is a comic genius!


If I do not enjoy the first film in a series, I will almost never bother with a sequel. This, I suppose, is probably quite normal, but it bears repeating. So, when I had a chance to take in a screening of the sequel to the loathsome remake of The Pink Panther with Steve Martin, I was somewhat hesitant. However, my fiance was excited about the film, so it seemed like a great way for us to spend some time together. I also promised to never curve reviews just because my partner liked something.

That said, I enjoyed The Pink Panther 2, even more than Steve Martin's first outing as Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Every now and then, I go into a comedy I prejudge as lame and I come out completely and pleasantly surprised. The last time that happened was when I took in Get Smart (reviewed here!) and was shocked by how it actually had a motif. The Pink Panther 2 is not as smart or surprising - it is plagued by a terribly predictable plot, for example - but it is solidly funny and it is worth seeing. Indeed, when this comes out on DVD, it is a solid recommend for seeing, even if not the buy. That said, my fiancé and I laughed . . . a lot and with good reason. The Pink Panther 2 is quite funny.

When priceless artifacts like the Shroud Of Turin, the Magna Carta and the Imperial sword, French Inspector Jacques Clouseau is called in to lead a dream team of investigators from around the world. The perpetrator of the crimes appears to be a master criminal called The Tornado, who stopped working ten years prior. Determined to protect the Pink Panther diamond, which authorities worry might be the next targeted item, Clouseau joins the dream team and no sooner does he leave French soil than the Pink Panther diamond is stolen.

Thus, the dream team of Vicenzo, Pepperidge, Kenji and Sonia (an expert in The Tornado's escapades) descends upon France, where they begin investigating the Pink Panther's theft. Aided by Ponton, Clouseau - who has been on parking ticket detail for over a year prior - witlessly begins investigating, despite the heavy intellectual competition from the other members of the team. Plagued by a love for his assistant, Nicole, that he is unable to express and Vincenzo's advanced upon her, Clouseau sneaks, burns and stumbles his way onto the trail of the Tornado, whom he is not even certain is the actual thief!

The Pink Panther 2 is a mystery comedy and unfortunately, anyone who has seen any amount of mysteries will be unsurprised by who the thief is. In fact, in treating the film like a mystery, I overthought and my first guess - Ponton's wife of ten years, the first character to have a mention to "ten years" outside the Tornado - was wrong. However, once it became clear that Ponton's wife was a mostly off-screen character, the solution to the mystery is actually quite obvious and, in fact, painfully so. In fact, the guilty party might as well enter the film with a big sign that reads "Red Herring, I didn't do it! Wink! Wink!"

But, of course, the Pink Panther series is not about great crime fighting or intelligent detective work, it is essentially about a detective who bumbles his way into the right answers. The point is to be funny; this is a slapstick movie and as that it works wonderfully. I am not generally inclined toward slapstick and I found myself laughing a lot at The Pink Panther 2. But the thing is, a lot of the humor I found myself laughing at was not the slapstick humor, it was the verbal humor. So, for example, my fiance and I were the only ones to laugh at the hilarious line when Clouseau hands Chief Inspector Dreyfus (played by John Cleese) a report on sixteen months of parking tickets, Dreyfus responds, "I shall waste no time in reading this." Hilarious. And there are a number of verbal gags like that, like Nicole and Clouseau talking about remembering to forget the night of passion they almost had.

Even the jokes that are telegraphed or are obvious setups - like Dreyfus telling Clouseau to deny that Dreyfus had assigned him to parking ticket detail - still pay off in funny ways and it works. The Pink Panther 2 has a lot of physical comedy, from Clouseau being dragged by a car in the earliest sequences to him snooping around the Tornado's fence's estate. And in this regard, Steve Martin is an obvious and wonderful choice for Clouseau who lives up to the comedic reputation and potential that he fell too far short of in the first film.

The Pink Panther 2 has a decent cast that is used quite well. In addition to Steve Martin, the film is populated by John Cleese and Lily Tomlin, as the political correctness officer who tries to train Clouseau to be more respectful to coworkers and different ethnicities in some of the film's funniest verbal moments. Cleese, Tomlin and Martin are all expected to be funny because of their long histories in comedy and they each live up to their potential in that regard. Conversely, acting heavyweights Jeremy Irons, Andy Garcia and Alfred Molina all appear in The Pink Panther 2. While Irons is not given anything especially comedic to work with, Garcia either falls flat with much of his humor or is unable to present the comedy he is given in a funny way. Molina adapts well to humor, actually poking fun at some of the dignity he comes at so many of his serious roles with by playing an arrogant Brit.

Jean Reno makes a great straightman to Martin's Clouseau as Ponton. Similarly, Emily Mortimer makes for a good romantic foil to Martin's Clouseau and that works for the film perfectly. Mortimer plays Nicole as plain and shy in a way that she seems quite credible at. This makes Martin's performance as the often over-the-top Clouseau resonate with a reality that makes the viewer feel like the world of The Pink Panther is filled with a realistically diverse population.

Martin, for his part, reminds the viewer that with decent material - and he co-wrote The Pink Panther 2 - he is able to navigate physical and verbal comedy like the seasoned pro he is. Truth be told, though, the Clouseau character is mostly a one-joke character. He is the hapless fool who stumbles into good fortune and the clues needed to succeed. The rest of the Dream Team are similarly monolithic, so it is not like The Pink Panther 2 is a great work of character development or any particular genius in that regard.

But it is fun and it is funny. My partner lauds it as one of the funniest movies ever and I am loathe to contradict my fiance. The Pink Panther 2 is fun, funny and it is good for consistent laughs. But it is not an amazing film. Going into it with that expectation would be ridiculous. Without it, though, it is enough fun to recommend and enjoy. Thoroughly.

For other comedy sequels, please visit my reviews of:
The Whole Ten Yards
Shrek Forever After
Scary Movie 4

6/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an updated listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |