This movie is just like Dragon Ball Evolution But worse

- - This review may contain a few minor spoilers - - - In my opinion this is quite a fantastic adaptation of Cassandra Clare's first book in the The Mortal Instrument series. It's fast-paced and full of everything that makes Fantasy fun: friendship, betrayal, magical creatures, witches, the struggle between good and evil although those are sometimes not easily identified... Lily Collins - though lacking book-Clary's signature flaming red hair - is a perfect cast for the character of Clary and funnily enough after watching Aidan Turner's performance as a vampire in "Being Human" I thought he would be perfect for the role of the werewolf Luke. Cudos to the casting director, he truly found the perfect actor for each role and the chemistry between Clary/Jace and Luke/Jocelyn (even if they got very little screen time together) was superb. I also enjoyed that the characters all really had their own distinct voice and personality. Jace's arrogance and hidden vulnerability really came through in Jamie Campbell Bower's performance and the same goes Clary, whose bravery and determination were great fun to watch. You go, girl! All in all this adaptation is pretty true to the books with a few minor changes as those scenes or plot lines would have not translated to the screen too well. I was impressed by the cinematography and the contrast between modern NYC and the Shadowhunters' medieval kind of world and lifestyle. Fortunately the vomit-inducing incest storyline was basically capped from the movie (or at least we know what was what from the get-go unlike in the books).As with most movies this one had a few flaws as well. The screenwriter apparently did NOT understand how the portal worked! Valentine reaching out from beyond it was a cheap horror movie moment that was both point- and senseless. What is going to happen with Simon now that he was bitten? This should have been explained. I'm also disappointed they cut one of my favorite characters from the movie: Raphael Santiago. Not that it actually matters since there won't be a second movie unfortunately. If you paid attention to the background story/flashback scenes you understood why Valentine was adamant Clary drink his blood from the Mortal Cup but I think this may have been confusing for those who didn't read the books. The same goes for Clary's talent to create runes, which admittedly isn't explained in book #1 but on screen this suddenly appearing talent seemed just like bad writing. They needed to somehow magically turn the tables during the end fight and then voilá, Clary discovers this previously never mentioned or explained talent to save the day. I would have loved to see the original trilogy adapted completely. The TV show is so poorly produced, the acting so sub-par and the entire story only loosely based on the books anymore that I couldn't get through more than a few episodes.

Clary is apparently an ordinary girl with a normal life, but when she starts drawing a strange sign and sees things and people ordinary humans cannot, she is introduced by Jace to a supernatural world in which werewolves and demons coexist. As a shadowhunter, Jace is in charge with maintaining peace by fighting against demons, and thus, he helps Clary find her missing mother which holds deep secrets regarding her origins, childhood and special gifts.This movie features a great fictional world, full of monsters and magic places in which Clary and her friends must fight for survival and a for magical object. It looks great and the CGI is truly awesome but that is about it. Except some thrilling fights, there is nothing more to amaze you. I had the impression I was watching a soap opera much more times than I thought it was an action film. Too much romance, or things related to it, look there's father, look there isn't father and such nonsense instead of focusing on the interesting part of the plot. In addition, almost everything related to Clary in the action part seems too superficial and not very well thought, when I was expecting a bit more implication from her. Instead, she focuses of figuring out which boy she "loves" more, thus deriving from the main idea which could have provided a lot more than her sentimental interests.It could have been a great movie if it had done what this movie is all about. It had potential, it had a good idea, it had a great SF world but as always, they didn't know what to do with them. Big shame

In New York City, young Clary starts having problems. She sees people and things that others cannot. She obsessively draws strange symbols in her room. She gets in trouble with strangers at a club and sees impossible actions. Her friend who is a young man is interested in her in a way that she is not interested in him. To top it all off, unknown forces kidnap her mother and ransack the apartment where the two of them lived.Clary discovers that she is a Shadowhunter, a dying breed who have fantastic magical powers, but are fully mortal. That is, they age normally and they die fairly easily. Shadowhunters fight and kill demons as best they can. They get their magic from inheritance (parents were Shadowhunters) or transformation (drinking from the Cup of Raziel). Drinking from the Cup also confers the ability to write runes on one's body; these often yield magical assistance.Their recruiting has been weak of late since two of the most powerful of their members (Valentine and Jocelyn) have gone off the rails. Valentine consorted with demons to gain their powers. Jocelyn hid the Cup to keep it away from Valentine. Valentine wants the Cup back, and goes to all sorts of foul actions to get it. Clary needs to go from her 'mundane' (ordinary human) state to being the most powerful and inventive of all the Shadowhunters in order to stop Valentine. She's shorted on time, since Valentine and his henchmen move things forward quickly.Simon is in love with Clary, Clary is in love with Jace, Jace is in love with Clary, but Valentine convinces Jace that he is Clary's sister. Oi. Magnus and Alec might be attracted to one another, but there is so much going on.------There seemed to me to be just too much going on. I do not fault the actors, but rather the script/book. For this film, we inherit structure from werewolf, vampire, and warlock lore. We inherit structure from biblical warrior angel lore. But wait! There's more! On top of all the rules and logic already involved, we have the invented Shadowhunters. Much of their baggage is not all that well explained. Where did the portal come from? How did they get all that real estate? How do they keep the real estate when there are so few of them, and none of them work, apparently. Where did the underground group dealing with the dead come from? How are they connected? Anyway, much as I liked the film, I thought it was dreadfully short of reaching sufficiency on exposition. Since there is likely no second film matching the books, explanations will likely remain lacking.Note from later: the property morphed into a TV series that ran in 2015. The quality was OK, perhaps, but I could not get traction on it to get further resolution than what I saw in the theatrical film.