Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones Movie Review

Went to JCube to watch the mortal instruments a close friend today. It's like the third time I was in JCube in a week.

I was told that this movie received low ratings from movie critics but rated quite high by the others. Well I'll probably give it a rating of 4 out of 10. There were the small parts that the movie didn't touch on, leaving you to guess stuff, and the whole plot line was well, confusing as a result.



Spoilers ahead:

Clary (played by Lily Collins) is on the phone with her friend Simon (played by Robert Sheehan) making plans for the day. While talking on the phone, she draws a particular symbol (the one shown below)on some mist on a window and doodles on a sticky note.


Clary's mother, Jocelyn (played by Lena Headey) arrives home with Luke (Aidan Turner). Jocelyn sees the symbol on the sticky note and shows Luke the note, and you can tell their face change and they start to worry. While Clary is out with Simon at some poetry reading, Luke tells Jocelyn that it's time to tell Clary "the truth" but Jocelyn thinks it is not time yet.


While at the poetry reading at a coffee place, Eric (played by Chris Ratz) is delivering a really sucky poem and Simon gets Clary another cup of coffee. While Clary pours sugar into the coffee, she realises that the symbol appears on the foam of the coffee.

When night falls, Clary and Simon passes a night club and Clary spots the symbol on the club's sign. She asks the bouncer about the sign, but the bouncer can't see it, and neither can Simon. However one man entering the club hears it, and whispers something to the bouncer, who lets both of them in. While inside the club, Clary notices a man looking at her, before spotting another woman and going towards her. Then Clary sees the snake bracelet on the woman's arm come to life. The man pulls down the woman's collar to see something (I presume some symbol? Not very sure since there was a symbol and a striking red jewel necklace) before a second man appear to grab the first man and hold him down. A third man appears and pulls out a blade and kills the first man. Clary screams and everyone looks at her, including the three "killers". However no one else seems to have seen (or see) the three "killers" and Simon pulls her outside.


Clary awakens the next day finding dirt on her hands (that probably came from paint) and finds her room littered with drawings of the symbol.


She tears some of them down but leaves majority of them on her wall. When Clary leaves, Jocelyn enters her room, sees the symbols, and becomes worried.She brings some to meet Simon at a coffee place to discuss about the symbols, only to found that Jace (played by Jamie Campbell), who was the guy at the nightclub with the blade, has 'found' her.


Clary tries to use Simon as a shield, but Simon can't see Jace, and thought she was being weird. Clary then goes out of the coffee place to speak with Jace. Clary then learns that she can see Jace because she is not a mundane. At the same time, two men and a dog shows up at Jocelyn's house and demands for a cup and it erupts into a fight. She tries to call Clary and Simon, and only got through to Clary after her 4th attempt to get either one of them. Jocelyn tells Clary to call Luke and tell him that Valentine has found her. Jocelyn then pulls out a small box and takes a small vial out and drinks from it before passing out.

Clary rushes home sensing something is wrong. She sees her house in a mess and can't find her mother anywhere, though she sees the dog that the two men brought with them. The dog mutates into a creature and chases Clary who tries to fight it off by turning on the gas stove and pouring kerosene of the floor and igniting it. The creature blows up, but it regenerates. Jace comes in the nick of time and destroy the creature with his blade. Clary then learns that the dog is a demon and the man that she saw him kill at the club was also a demon.

After gaining enough composure, Clary runs downstairs to ask Dorothea (played by CCH Pounder) is she knew what happened to her mother. Dorothea is a witch and is able to see Jace, a shadowhunter as it is revealed. Dorothea tries to read Clary but find her mind 'blocked'. Dorothea brings out a set of tarot cards that Jocelyn had drawn and have Clary run her hands over it. While Clary is running her hands over the card, one of the card gets attracted to her hands and it had a cup drawn on the other side of it.


We learn that this cup is called the Mortal Cup. Then a thumping is heard from upstairs, and Clary runs upstairs grabbing a fire extinguisher and hitting the intruder with it. The intruder turns out to be Simon. Jace, Simon and Clary then proceed to find Luke.

The three of them went to Luke's bookstore. Simon is instructed to wait outside while Jace and Clary enters. They find Luke strapped to a chair and being interrogated by the same two men that found Jocelyn. They demand for the location of the cup and threatens to harm Jocelyn and Clary. Clary begs Jace to save Luke because he is like a family to her. Luke explains to the two men that he plans on giving the cup to Valentine himself and couldn't care about Jocelyn or Clary. Clary hears this and breaks something (a vase?) and draws attention to herself. Jace saves Clary form the two men and both of them runs out of the bookstore. Meanwhile two 'cops' turn up in a police car and Simon tried to get their help. The cops turn out to be demons and Jace saves Simon from them.

After leaving the place, Jace takes Clary and Simon to "The Institute". Simon sees it as a dump, but Clary sees it as a castle. Clary collapses once inside, and Jace grabs a weapon (which the movie didn't say what it was, but after research I found it's called a 'stele') and 'burns' a symbol (which again, the movie didn't say what it was, but google search told me it is called a runes) into Clary's arms, presumingly to save her. When Clary awakens, two other shadowhunters meet her - Alec (played by Kevin Zegers) and Isabelle (played by Jemima West). Clary then is lead to a library to meet Hodge (played by Jared Harris) who then tells her the story behind the Mortal Cup, and about Valentine (played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Apparently Valentine was a shadowhunter who became corrupted and used the cup to gain control over demons. Jocelyn seeing that, steals the cup from Valentine and disappears with it and since then, no one knows where the mortal cup is.

Jace takes Clary to a graveyard to met a shadowhunter (presumingly dead) so that Clary might be able to regain her memories.Clary sees some of her past exposure to the shadowhunter's world and collapses to the ground starting to draw something in the sand, which Jace makes out as "Bane". Jace thinks this referes to Magnus Bane (played by Godfrey Gao).


Back at The Institute, Isabelle gives Clary some of her clothes (revealing, of course) to dress up to meet Magnus.


The 3 shadowhunters and Clary find him in a club and Clary learns that Jocelyn had hired him to block out anything in her memory that is being related to the shadowhunter's world, and that as she grew older, she required more frequent sessions. Clary also finds out that Magnus is the buyer for all of Jocelyn's painting because Magus knew that she needed the money for all the treatments. Clary points out a protrait of a man who she thought was her father, but Magnus tells her that the man and Jocelyn never even met (I dunno why this is important, but well...).


In the meantime, someone pours a blue liquid into Simon's drink. Simon drinks a sip of it before Isabelle could react, but it was too late. Simon is taken by the man and some other people believed to be vampires. Clary is alerted to it.


The four of them enter a church to get supplies, and it is revealed that all older churches have a secret compartment to hide some weapons for shadowhunters to fight vampires (or something along that line). Jace gives Clary a vampire gun. They then go to Hotel Dumort to save Simon. They find him suspended in the ceiling and free him, only to be met with more vampires. The shadowhunters fight them off but more vampires begin to appear. Suddenly some werewolves appear and take on the vampires. The shadowhunters rush to the roof (because the sun is coming out I presume) and where more vampires appear. Some werewolves help them fight off the vampires. One of the werewolf looks straight at Clary, and frightened, she throws a knife at him. They all run away.


Back at The Institute, Alec confronts Clary and 'demands' that she leave because she nearly gotten them all killed. Clary fires back at Alec and tells him that he wants her gone because he likes Jace (erm, ok?). Alec threatens to kill her if she mentions it again.

Clary sits by Simon's bed and draws a picture of Jace (as an angel) in her notebook. When Simon wakes up, Clary passes him his specs. Simon realises he no longer needs his specs and it is as though he has perfect vision. Clary then cozies up next to Simon and spots vampire bites. Jace sees this and he appears to be jealous. Simon falls back to sleep and Clary goes to find Jace as he was playing a Bach piece on the piano. It is then revealed that Bach was also a shadowhunter, and wrote music that could make a demon show itself. Jace then shows Clary a portal in the library which could take anyone whereever they wanted to with the proper training to use it.


Jace then brings Clary up to the roof (I presume it was the roof), reminding her it was her birthday and gives her an apple with a candle in it and shows her blooming flowers. And of course, they share a passionate kiss.


Jace and Clary walks back down to the infirmary and was about to kiss before Simon opened the door. Jace gets the wrong idea and is upset, and Simon is upset after finding the drawing of Jace in her notebook (which he turned into a devil). Simon reveals that he is in love with Clary and tells Clary that Jace wants Clary only to get the cup. Simon leaves.

In the library, Clary is drawing runes in a notebook by herself that evening while sipping a cup of coffee. While reading up on runes, she places the cup on the page and grabs at it, but the cup has somehow sunk into the page. Hodge finds her pulling the cup right out of the page and tells her that the only other person who has been able to do that was her mother. Clary then comes to a realization where the cup is and runs to get Jace.

The shadowhunters run back to Clary's home to meet with Dorothea. Clary bumps into Eric who is pleasantly surprise at how Clary looks with her 'new style of clothes' and texts Simon about seeing her. Eric is unable to see Jace, Alec or Isabelle.


Alec and Isabelle go to Clary's apartment and spread ashes to detect a demon. Clary and Jace finds Dorothea, who asks that Jace leaves his weapons outside her house. Clary asks Dorothea for the tarot cards while Jace starts playing the piano with the same Bach piece, even though Dorothea tells him it's out of tune. The ashes on the upper floor move around, and unknown to Alec and Isabelle, it was moving around with Dorothea. Clary finds the card with the cup in it and is able to pull it out, just as she'd thought. While Jace plays the piano, it begins to irritate Dorothea, who is revealed to be a demon. She transforms and attacks the shadowhunters and pierces Alec with one of her tentacles while subduing the other three. She is about to leave when Simon appears, who has come to find Clary after getting Eric's text. Clary calls from the window to warn Simon, who grabs a shovel and whacks Dorothea across the face, slightly lopping her head to the side. He tackles her back into the house where Jace destroys her with his blade.

Alec is taken back to the infirmary where he is terribly wounded. Clary brings the tarot card with the cup to Hodge, who takes it after she pulls it out. He then betrays her by opening the portal, bringing out Valentine himself.


Valentine takes the cup from Hodge and cuts his hand, pouring his blood in there and forcing Clary to drink from it. It is also shown that Jocelyn's body is floating within the portal. He tells Clary that he made her mother drink from it while she was in her womb, then telling her that he is her true father. He tries to make her drink his blood, but she puts the cup back into the card and runs into the portal after her mother.

Clary lands outside a street where a little girl is wandering. She turns out to be a demon and is mauled by a werewolf. This werewolf turns out to be Luke, and they are outside his book store. Clary is hesitant to follow him after what she heard him say, but he says he only said that to protect her and Jocelyn. Luke gives her back the knife which she threw at him at Hotel Dumort (the werewolf Clary threw the knife at was Luke). Luke also confirms that Valentine is Clary's father and that she had a brother, Jonathan Christopher Morgenstern, who Luke told her is dead. Meanwhile, Valentine grabs various spears and swords and starts placing them in the center of the floor. Hodge went to the roof to open the roof which is directly on top of the star (I presume), creating a star that produces a beacon of light that summons a horde of demons to The Institute. The beacon of light alerts Luke, who calls upon his other werewolf brothers to follow him, and he takes Clary back to the Institute to fight back.

Magnus also arrives at the infirmary to tend to Alec, saying he will survive. Magnus asks for a list of things from Isabelle and Simon, who finds them in the basement along with Jocelyn's floating body. Isabelle takes the things up to Magnus while asking Simon to wait there. The two men from the start of the show (who are Valentine's men) appears and Simon hides from them. They see Jocelyn and takes her to the library. Isabelle almost bumps into them. After the men have left, demons starts to appear. Isabelle and Simon join in the fight with the werewolves (and Clary), but the demons overpower the men as they are unable to turn into their werewolf forms within The Institute. Clary grabs a stele from Isabelle and draws a new rune on her hand, holding them off long enough for her and her friends to escape.


Isabelle tells Clary that she has never seen the rune, and the Clary has some power that none of them has. Isabelle and Simon rush to the roof to turn off the beacon while fighting off the demons with a flame-thrower. Hodge attempts to redeem himself by aiding Isabelle and Simon in fighting off the demons and closing the roof. He manages to kill one of Valentine's men by throwing a bladed star at him.


Jace confronts Valentine alone, who tells him that Jace's real name is Jonathan and that he is his son. Jace refuses to believe it until the ring on Jace's finger is turned upside down to reveal a "M" (for Morgenstern) instead of the "W" that Jace thought it was to be (for Wayland, which he thought was his surname). Clary confronts Valentine again, where he reveals to her that Jace and her are both his children, making them siblings. Clary refuse to believe it as they are in love. Valentine forces/demands Clary to give him the cup, and Jace upon seeing Valentine 'hurting' her, battles him, removing a sword from the floor and turning the beacon off. Jace is nearly killed by Valentine, but Clary threatens to throw the cup through the portal and tuns Valentine's attention away from Jace. Valentine rushes to the portal to try to grab the cup, but he never touches the cup nor Clary's hand and Clary tells him that he will never be her true father because he doesn't know her thoughts. Valentine then tries to persuade Clary to help him and she gives him the cup and then pushes him into the portal. Moments later, Valentine reaches out from the portal and grabs Clary, but Jace places a stele into the portal, freezing it with Valentine's arms sticking out. He creates a powerful blast that destroys the ice. The whole place is covered in snow, but Valentine is nowhere to be found. Clary goes to find Jocelyn lying on the couch and apologizes to her mother for not previously accepting that everything she did was to protect Clary, and Jocelyn's finger starts moving. We see that the mortal cup is still in the tarot card and is safe with Clary.

Simon finds Clary at the hospital with Luke as they sit by Jocelyn's bed. He tells her to go home so he can watch over her mother. He admits that he'd hoped Clary would've said she loved him back after he told her so, but she assures him that somebody will love him back.

Clary goes back to her apartment and draws another rune on her arm to fix the place up using her powers. Jace goes to meet her there and asks her to rejoin him. After a brief moment of thinking, Clary accepts that she is not a mundane and follows Jace. She hops on the back of his motorcycle but is hesitant to hold onto him. He tells her that he doesn't believe in his heart that they are siblings. Clary says that she doesn't know how to look at the world now after all that she's seen. Jace responds that the world is still the same, but it is she who is different. With that, he rides off with her.


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