City of Bones

Release date: 21^st August

Top Billing: Lilly Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan

When her mother disappears, Clary Fray learns that she descends from a line of warriors, known as Shadowhunters, who protect our world from demons. Needing answers, she joins forces with others like her and heads into a dangerous alternate New York with vampires and werewolves.

This was a little hard for me to review. For months I had been sat with my fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed. COB is one of my favourite YA books and all I hoped for was that they had learned their lessons after the Twilight debacle. I knew they could do it, look at Hunger Games, but still I went into the theatre with some trepidation.

A big plus was that on the whole they could act, it helps but producers don’t always think that’s necessary. The scenes looked great, the pace fast though I couldn’t help thinking about the book. Yes I know I shouldn’t, so shoot me. Clary and Jace worked well enough, not quite what I had in my head but nevertheless it didn’t detract from the story. A niggle I did have was the casting for Alec and Isobel, they were nothing like the original characters and I couldn’t help shaking my head at their lack of presence on the screen.

Rather than working out what was going on, you know expecting the audience to have a brain, they threw everything at you in the first 5 minutes, answering any questions you might have about Clary and the shadowhunters. For those who haven’t read the book I would still assume they could figure out what was happening without the run down and the ending, all I can say is why? It is similar to the book but I have no idea why they changed that little piece of information.

That said I have watched it again, trying my best to ignore the book and found when I did do that, I actually enjoyed it. They captured the essence of the book and the growing relationship between the two main characters. It is well worth a watch.