MovieChat Forums > The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013) Discussion > Terrible acting. Terrible pacing. Terr...

Terrible acting. Terrible pacing. Terrible story.

posted 9 years ago by masterjedi-2
9 replies | jump to latest

I watched this movie the other night and it was hands-down one of the worst movies that I've seen in the past few years. I don't know how long the book is, but they tried to cram in way too much for a two-hour movie. The pacing was running at break-neck speed and jumped from scene to scene with little regard to the story or audience. The film is riddled with horrible exposition. The characterizations were horribly handled too, as they just threw in characters with little or no explanations as to who they were. And the romance (if you want to call it that) was downright pathetic and unbelieveable. How can you have love-triangles built out of NOTHING? (And only about 30 minutes into the movie!) I didn't know who half of these people were or why I should care about their sudden romance. And the gay thing with Alec? Where did that even come from and how did Clary even pick up on that? And Isabelle is introduced when she comes in the room and dumps some slutty clothes on Clary. Wow, nice intro there. No one in this movie actually TALKS like real people would talk. Even George Lucas writes better dialogue and that's saying a lot.

The director just needed to slow things down a little bit and quit jumping from scene to scene. [SPOILERS coming] For instance, Simon gets abducted by vampires at a party after someone spikes his cocktail. Why? And now why do our heroes have to rush out and rescue him? Besides, Clary, no one on the teams gives a rat's ass about Simon. So, they run into the vampire hive to save Simon and face a horde that they weren't prepared for. And after the rescue, Clary notices that Simon is acting funny, doesn't need his glasses anymore AND has puncture wounds on his body. Does she tell anyone, "Hey, my friend MIGHT be a vampire!" No, not at all. It just gets worse from there.

They also wasted...I mean COMPLETELY WASTED the appearances of veteran actors like Jonathan Rhys Meyers, CCH Pounder and Lena Headey.

I could go on, but I'm just too frustrated with this movie. This is an example of why Hollywood needs to stop green-lighting TEEN PARANORMAL movies and rushing them into theaters. Look at the box office bombs in the past two years: The Host, Beautiful Creatures and now City of Bones. All too similar and all to dumb.

[–] jarhead1212 9 years ago

You have a very strong opinion for someone who has never read the book series... Most of the time the movie translation of a book are a let down, but they did a wonderful job considering. Maybe you just read the stories before being so harsh.

[–] she-escapes 9 years ago

You have a very strong opinion for someone who has never read the book series…

The whole point of a film adaptation is that they are supposed to appeal to books fans and also the lay moviegoer. A film that has been made with the expectation that all audience members "will have read the book" is simply lazy. I must agree with the OP (even as a reader of this series) when they summarise the film as having: "Terrible acting. Terrible pacing. Terrible story." It is quite clear the screenplay, acting, direction and editing for this film were haphazardly whipped together.

Fortunately, I did not pay to see this in the cinema and caught it at a friend's place. The greenhouse scene where the pop song began to play had us both in stitches.

[–] jarhead1212 9 years ago

Welp, you can't please everyone. Hopefully the new Shadowhunters series coming soon on ABC Family will do better, considering they are starting from scratch, fully recasting and beginning again with City of Bones as if the film was never made. And of course I don't "expect" the entire moviegoer audience to have read the series, but I can guarantee at least 50% have, knowing these books have a huge fanbase. You can never get a full story from a film adaptation, and everyone knows that. Well mostly everyone. So the expectations shouldn't have been too high to begin with. People have been the same with the Harry Potter series. That was my only point.

[–] gloria_e_evans 9 years ago

Who is going to play JACE? I hope they do a better job casting that character. JCB was a freaking nightmare. I think a lot of these YA adaptations should take the TV route. That way they don't have to try and squeeze so much into a 2 hour movie. Just because it is a bestselling YA novel doesn't mean that it should be made into a movie. I don't believe the fanbase was as large as they thought it was either.

[–] AgentX2014 9 years ago

I have read and loved the books and agree with original post. Bad casting and horrible lines, waste of good talent appearances, book 5 spoilers thrown in during last half of movie, etc. The first watch wasn't so bad since I read the books and knew the story, but watching a second time, I caught all that was wrong. These books were successful for a reason, don't dumb them down. That is why we are getting YA bombs. Harry Potter and Hunger Games didn't dumb it down. They were successful. Still can't figure why Twilight was. Vampire Acadamy BOOK series was way better on that front, but once again the movie flopped from being dumbed down and poor casting.

I am excited to see Shadowhunters knowing the casting is changing, and that they are trying to remain truer to the book. I am hoping this will be a case of BtVS (buffy the vampire slayer) the movie vs. the tv show in that regard.

[–] althea_faerie 9 years ago

Still can't figure why Twilight was. Vampire Acadamy BOOK series was way better on that front, but once again the movie flopped from being dumbed down and poor casting.

I am excited to see Shadowhunters knowing the casting is changing, and that they are trying to remain truer to the book.

Didn't they cast the guy from VA as Jace for TV?

Worst. Rescue. EVER!

[–] AgentX2014 9 years ago

Yes, true, and it could prove a let down, though in VA, I think their biggest mistake was trying to turn it into a comedy slash action movie. So the bad acting could fall to bad lines and bad directing. Of course, if it truly was just plain bad acting, Shadowhunters might be screwed before the first take.

[–] PopSixSquish 9 years ago

I couldn't agree more with all of that.

After seeing the abysmal reviews on Netflix, I expected no more than what I saw. The first hour actually held my interest sufficiently, but from there...they started to lose me. The whole kissing-in-the-greenhouse-to-Demi-Lovato was cornball. By the time some mildly interesting things started to happen again, I really didn't care anymore. There was no real payoff. It felt too long even though they at some point started rushing to cram in all that stuff about Jace's actual parentage and whatnot.

That love triangle--ay, yi, yi! Forced, to say the least. "Here we go again! Team Jace vs. Team Simon, right?? And Simon becomes a vampire, right??" I'll admit that both guys were kinda cute-ish and likable, but there wasn't enough development, and it felt really trite.

I knew this was another of the "teen hero to save the world" deals being flipped out to try and stick the next Harry Potter or Hunger Games, and it *definitely* felt like the HP/Buffy melding it apparently was. [Now I loooove HP & THG. I love the books. Collins may not be the best writer, but the characters she's working with are wonderful. I love how consistent and faithful those films are to the text, despite the fact that bringing any book to life on the screen inevitably necessitates some omissions, additions, and alterations. Still, with those you have unified stories and very high-quality films that maintain the proper essence. It's hard not to love them.]

In the case of this series, I'm sure the author will be happier with the TV version. I'm not certain of what makes the books superior because I didn't read them either--I just recall seeing them, recognizing the titles, and reading the blurbs several years ago while working in the children's department of a library. Some say they're good, some say they're 'eh.' What I knew then was that they were popular, but supposedly taking heat for being "anti-religion" or something. The plot sounded okay to me. Like other YA adaptations, the book had to have been better than this, though. I like Lena Headey and Jamie Campbell Bower, but this was a mess.

[–] brianful 9 years ago

i agree this movie was stupid as he11. given all they had gone through the scene where dude is all hurt cause she fell for the other guy was just laughable. who cares?!