The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

The era of converting young adult fantasy books into films is well and truly alive - but that may not necessarily be a good thing.
Cassandra Clare's six-part fantasy series The Mortal Instruments is the latest to receive the Hollywood treatment, following last Thursday's release of City of Bones.
Director Harald Zwart thrusts us face first into the main plot, which centres around a teenage girl named Clarissa "Clary" Fray starts to see strange symbols.
Fray's symbol spotting takes a supernatural turn almost immediately when she witnesses an intense murder at a nightclub - which only she can actually see.
Much like fellow novels-turned-film series Harry Potter's muggles, Fray is classed as a "mundane" - a seemingly ordinary human with an ability to see the Shadowhunters, demons and other beings that inhabit the world.
But unlike the way Harry Potter steadily builds a narrative and develops the characters to a point we can't imagine being without them, City of Bones' plot flies at a million miles an hour and it is easy to feel no connection to any of the characters.
Coty of Bones shares more in common with Twilight than you may think.
The battle between good and evil, the romantic relationship between an ordinary human and a "supernatural being", and fights between demons, vampires, werewolves and the like.
Add to that some seriously over-acted sequences and unimaginative dialogue, and it is easy to understand why it holds a 13% rating online film aggregator "Rotten Tomatoes".
Having not read the books I can not give a judgment on how true to Clare's work the film was, but I can confirm 23 year old males may not be the target audience.
If you enjoyed The Twilight Series, you may well enjoy City of Bones.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: 130 minutes (2013)