The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

"When her mother disappears, Clary Fray learns that she descends from a line of warriors who protect our world from demons. She joins forces with others like her and heads into a dangerous alternate New York called Downworld."

Based on the YA fantasy-horror novel by alleged plagiarist Cassandra Clare, "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" is yet another wannabe "Twilight" replacement which has turned out to be a huge flop at the box office. I can't say that I'm surprised.

Since I'm not a reader or a "young adult", I've never heard of the series of books which this movie is based on before. I also have no idea if the allegations of plagiarism against the author are true or due to "cloning" and homaging, but either way, "The Mortal Instruments" appears to be little more than a bland conflation of "Night Watch" (2004), "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Percy Jackson and the Olympians", the "Prophecy" series, and a plethora of clichéd offerings from the "demon-hunting" subgenre. Ironically, given that "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" is produced by Constantin Films, there's a very slight feeling of "Constantine" (2005) about this too. Unfortunately, that's where the good stuff ends.

"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" is overlong at 130 minutes, and pacing problems don't help to alleviate the boredom between brief and confusing action scenes. Harald Zwart's previous effort, "The Karate Kid" remake, also suffered from the same issues, but it's probably not entirely his fault this time. I imagine that producer and author interference influenced things quite badly; conflation of characters, casting choices, accent changes, rewrites, and the desire for a PG-13 rating to get more asses on seats were all contributing factors.

Thus, "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" is a visually pleasing big-budget production, but if you think that "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy is bad news for your bladder, this movie will literally, figuratively and actually bore the piss out of you too. I lost track of the number of toilet breaks I needed, but I think it was over half a dozen. The two cans of Rockstar which were necessary to keep myself awake took their toll, but at least I didn't wet myself like I did during "The Golden Compass" (2007), and I didn't miss anything important either.

Clary and creepy Jace share a mundane moment.

The cast of pretty "teenagers" do okay in their roles although Jamie Campbell Bower (who has been in the finales of the Harry Potter series, and played Caius in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn") is quite creepy-looking as Jace. Not looks-wise but accent-wise, he's very Paul Bettany, which brings up another irony since the star of the show, Lily Collins, was also in "Priest" (2011).

As she's not really a teenager, there's no problem with complimenting Lily Collins for being hot as Clary. Hell, even if she was sixteen instead of twenty-three, Phil Collins' daughter would still be pretty, and there's nothing wrong with saying so. She's slightly upstaged in the sexiness department by Jemima West as Isabelle, but she uses her huge eyebrows and nearly always open mouth to good effect. The "teeth and eyes" acting-style strikes again, albeit slightly less so than in typical teen soap operas. I also have to mention here that there's nothing more confusing than older actresses playing younger "jailbait" characters, so be prepared to feel as grubby as I did for ogling them. Or not, as the case may be.

Apart from Robert Sheehan as scrawny Simon gratuitously taking his shirt off, there's nothing for girls to see here unless they like their Jacob substitutes to be less ripped. Needless to say, his underdeveloped bare-chestedness did absolutely nothing for me, and I didn't like his character.

Kevin Zegers (recently in "The Colony") is very underused as Alec, yet he's got nothing to be ashamed of. Being unconscious on a bed for half the movie covers a multitude of sins. MILF-tastic Lena Headey is wasted even more since she disappears very early on in the story, and several other underwritten characters also suffer from clearly being reduced to bit parts for their respective actors. "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" truly equals "The Twilight Saga" in trying to pack too much in and rushing through the characters, and that's its downfall.

The problem with any of these "Young Adult novel" adaptations is not only that "Young Adult" is a curiously self-contradictory term and genre which pleases nobody—least of all its target audience—but that characterisation is never a strong point. It's hard to care about characters just because they are pretty, especially if there's none of the fleshing out which presumably occurs in the original literary medium. Having never read a "YA" novel in my life, I can't honestly say if the authors of these papery abominations make more of their "Mary Sues", and I'm not prepared to infantilise myself to find out. Just judging them by their movie adaptations, everything from "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" through to "Beautiful Creatures", "His Dark Materials", "Camp Half-Blood" and "The Hunger Games" must be some very low-brow reading material in the first place. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Sexy Isabelle has a big pair of swords.

As an aside, I don't care how much flak I get for it, but the unrequited gay love triangle which I assume to be one of the selling points of "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" is very bizarre and completely out of place in a movie (or book) meant for little kids. Most of the target audience simply wouldn't understand it except as an insult, or they might not notice its insidiousness at all, but others are surely going to say, "What?"—and therein lies a problem. For me, the trendy, politically correct acceptance of homosexuality shown here as something completely normal rather than applicable to a minority is about as realistic and subtle as decorating half the cast with tribal "magical sigil" tattoos. It's controversial propaganda aimed at an age group which shouldn't even have a sex life, and it's not done in way that provides any explanation for differences from the norm. Briefly mentioned as it is, the Achilles-Patroclus thing comes across as contrived as an episode of "Torchwood", especially as there's another more traditional, heterosexual, and "age appropriate" love triangle going on. If you really want children to see gay romance in a movie, you should let them watch dramas such as "Another Country", "My Beautiful Laundrette" or "Brokeback Mountain", not a kiddified action-adventure/supernatural-fantasy. No? Maybe it's they're R-rated! It's not worth pressing the point however, because there's no sexual tension or chemistry between anybody in this movie. It's all very tame.

With the MacGuffin-laden plot taking a back seat to the equally superficial teen romance, "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" reeks of blandness throughout. Rather than losing focus, it never has any to begin with, and it has no vitality, inertia, momentum or any other words which you can pull out of a thesaurus to describe its lack of "oomph". Maybe if the producers had gone for an R-rating instead of a PG-13, some realistic violence, goriness and horror could have spiced things up considerably more than the borderline adult dialogue and situations, but I highly doubt it. The bad guys are so underplayed that there's never any real threat to the safety of the main characters, and as I already said, it's impossible to care about any of them anyway.

"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" is insipid, often tedious, and confusing with it, so I don't recommend it at all.

Constantine (2005)

"Constantine tells the story of irreverent supernatural detective John Constantine, who has literally been to hell and back."

What the Hell is wrong with Roger Ebert? He only gave "Constantine" 1.5 stars out of 5 and then spent 90% of his review retelling the story in his own words. Pretty lame stuff, but he's already earned a small fortune by leeching from people with the ability to actually make films so what does he care? Probably about as much as I don't care for anything he has to say. Just to do something different on my blog though, I'm going to go through his "negative Nancy" criticism of "Constantine" and refute it.

Let's see how Roger begins his critique:

No, "Constantine" is not part of a trilogy including "Troy" and "Alexander." It's not about the emperor at all, but about a man who can see the world behind the world, and is waging war against the scavengers of the damned. There was a nice documentary about emperor penguins, however, at Sundance this year. The males sit on the eggs all winter long in like 60 degrees below zero.

Hmmmm, nobody thinks "Contantine" is about the Roman emperor who created Catholicism as the vessel to carry the word of God and control the unruly masses. Most people don't have a Classical education and have never even heard of him. Those who do also know that Constantine the Great was emperor from 306 to 337 A.D. and isn't even from the same period as either "Troy" or "Alexander" (which are only a couple of thousand years apart themselves). No, nobody expects "Constantine" to be part of a sword and sandals trilogy, we all know that it's based on a comicbook which we've never read. As for the penguins, what do they have to do with anything?

Keanu Reeves plays Constantine as a chain-smoking, depressed demon-hunter who lives above a bowling alley in Los Angeles. Since he was a child, he has been able to see that not all who walk among us are human. Some are penguins. Sorry about that. Some are half-angels and half-devils. Constantine knows he is doomed to hell because he once tried to kill himself, and is trying to rack up enough frames against the demons to earn his way into heaven.

Actually, Roger, none of them are penguins and you aren't funny. Thanks for retelling the story though because we never would have worked that out by watching the movie ourselves. By the way, "chain-smoking" is when you light a fresh cigarette with the smoldering butt of the previous one. Constantine never does that anywhere, he likes flicking his Zippo lighter open far too much.

There is a scene early in the movie where Constantine and his doctor look at his X-rays, never a good sign in a superhero movie. He has lung cancer. The angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton) tells him, "You are going to die young because you've smoked 30 cigarettes a day since you were 13." Gabriel has made more interesting announcements. Constantine has already spent some time in hell, which looks like a post-nuclear Los Angeles created by animators with a hangover. No doubt it is filled with carcinogens.

More storytelling? I thought Roger Ebert was some kind of great movie critic not a synopsis writer. Oh dear. "Constantine" is not a superhero movie, it's a supernatural action movie/comicbook adaptation with a huge $100,000,000 budget.

Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as an angel, really looks the androgynous part, and is completely disturbing in a "Should I fancy her or be terrified of her?" way. It's probably her most iconic role and Roger Ebert dismisses her with one misquoted line. Gah! Constantine smoked from the age of 15 not 13.

As for the "post-nuclear Los Angeles" jibe, that's exactly what it was meant to look like. It's all explained during the "Making of" featurettes on the DVD. "Animators with a hangover?" I doubt it, but all that hard work coding images probably gave a few of them eye-strain and headaches. You should try it for yourself one day, Roger, instead of stuffing your fat face with popcorn. None of it looks bad to me or over 900 reviewers on the IMDb who think the effects are amazing.

The half-angels and half-devils are earthly proxies in the war between God and Satan. You would think that God would be the New England Patriots of this contest, but apparently there is a chance that Satan could win. Constantine's lonely mission is to track down half-demons and cast them back to the fires below. Like Blade, the vampire-killer, he is surprisingly optimistic, considering he is one guy in one city dealing on a case-by-case basis, and the enemy is global.

Yeah, we know. Why don't you just tell us the whole story, Rog? Sure, Constantine is a bit like "Blade", so what? He's not black or a half-vampire. He doesn't even look like Sting or come from Liverpool like his comicbook form. What's the point? His optimism is out of place? He's actually rather pragmatic for a "superhero". Wait. Isn't Constantine supposed to be "depressed" according to the second paragraph of the "review"? "Depressed" and "optimistic"? How does that work?

We also have no idea what the sports reference is to because we're movie fans and couldn't care less about grown men being overpaid thousands of times more than a doctor earns just to fight like little babies over a bag of air on a field. If you are going to use an analogy, make it one that people understand.

Constantine has a technical advisor named Beeman (Max Baker), who lives in the ceiling of the bowling alley among the pin-spotting machines, and functions like Q in the James Bond movies. Here he is loading Constantine with the latest weaponry: "Bullet shavings from the assassination attempt on the Pope, holy water from the river of Jordan, and, you'll love this, screech beetles." The screech beetles come in a little matchbox. "To the fallen," Max explains, "the sound is like nails on a blackboard." Later there is a scene where Constantine is inundated by the creatures of hell, and desperately tries to reach the matchbox and get those beetles to screeching.

Again, we know. How is this criticism in any way? But yes, I do love all the weaponry and the humourous way some of the items are introduced. It's called "entertainment". "Beeman" was a character made-up just for the movie so make of it what you will.

Rachel Weisz plays Angela Dodson, an L.A. police detective whose twin sister, Isabel, has apparently committed suicide. Isabel reported seeing demons, so Angela consults Constantine, who nods wisely and wonders if Isabel jumped, or was metaphysically pushed. Later in the film, to show Angela that she also has the gift of seeing the world behind the world, Constantine holds her underwater in a bathtub until she passes out and sees the torments of hell. No bright white corridors and old friends and Yanni for her. You wonder what kind of an L.A. cop would allow herself to be experimentally drowned in a bathtub by a guy who lives over a bowling alley.

More storytelling and blah, blah, blah. Strangely enough, the kind of L.A. cop who allows herself to be "experimentally drowned in a bathtub" is one who is beside herself with grief/guilt over her sister's death and will try anything to find out why it happened. Did you miss that part, Roger? Nobody else did.

It's also worth noting that Rachel Weisz is awesome in the role. She's English but manages to pull off a perfectly legitimate American accent which is incredibly difficult. She's quite pretty too.

Together, they prowl the nighttime streets. At one point, Constantine needs to consult Midnite (Djimon Hounsou), a former witch doctor who runs a private nightclub where half-angels and half-demons can get half-loaded and talk shop. There is a doorman. To gain admittance, you have to read his mind and tell him what's on the other side of the card he's holding up. "Two frogs on a bench," Constantine says. Could have been a lucky guess.

Nope, it couldn't have been a lucky guess as Shia LeBoeuf's character, Chas Kramer, finds out when he attempts to bluff his way in. You have to know the answer, that's the point. It's a bar full of angels, demons, and psychics with supernatural abilities. What password method would be more appropriate? A secret handshake perhaps for those who have hands not paws?

What would have worked here is some condemnation of how weak Shia LeBoeuf's character is for most of the movie until he gets chance to cast off the comedic aspects and shine for a moment later. That would have been too much like reviewing though, wouldn't it?

There is a priest in the film, the alcoholic Father Hennessy (Pruitt Taylor Vince), whose name, I guess, is product placement. Strange that there is a priest, since that opens the door to Catholicism and therefore to the news that Constantine is not doomed unless he wages a lifelong war against demons, but need merely go to confession; three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, and he's outta there. Strange, that movies about Satan always require Catholics. You never see your Presbyterians or Episcopalians hurling down demons.

I think you'll find that Father Hennessy is a conflation of three characters from the "Hellblazer" comicbooks, and the one whose name he uses actually eats himself to death originally. Product placement? Hardly. A little word play on his alcoholism? Of course.

Talk about missing the point of the story completely! Constantine can't earn his way into Heaven by fighting demons or repentance. Confession may be good for the soul but Constantine's is already doomed. He's a suicide destined for Hell when he dies. Ever get the feeling that someone didn't watch the movie or remember what he wrote a couple of paragraphs ago?

Of course, most movies about Satan require Catholics. It's the "one true church" and all that jazz. If it wasn't for Catholicism (and the aforementioned Emperor Constantine), Christianity wouldn't have such a recognisable form. Post-reformation times, there are around 500 different Christian denominations, but none of them have the iconography (and idolatory) of Catholism. If you want a Christian minister in a movie, you need to have him in black and wearing a dog collar. It's the first thing people think of. Also, on the contrary, you do see Presbyterians and Episcopalians hurling down demons just not in the movies. Seeing people quietly praying instead of screaming Latin words doesn't have the same entertainment value. Baptists have been shown to be just as effective in "The Last Exorcism", but I'll give you that one because it was only recently.

The forces of hell manifest themselves in many ways. One victim is eaten by flies. A young girl is possessed by a devil, and Constantine shouts, "I need a mirror! Now! At least three feet high!" He can capture the demon in the mirror and throw it out the window, see, although you wonder why supernatural beings would have such low-tech security holes.

Why not give away an entire scene and spoil it for everyone? To answer the question with another, why would supernatural beings not have high-tech security either? They are narcissistic, vain and evil, that's why. They think they are invincible. Pride, however, comes before a fall. It's a proverb, look it up. It's an important plot point.

Reeves has a deliberately morose energy level in the movie, as befits one who has seen hell, walks among half-demons, and is dying. He keeps on smoking. Eventually he confronts Satan (Peter Stormare), who wears a white suit. (Satan to tailor: "I want a suit just like God's.") Oh, and the plot also involves the Spear of Destiny, which is the spear that killed Christ, and which has been missing since World War II, which seems to open a window to the possibility of Nazi villains, but no.

Finally, something approaching a real critical comment!!! Yes, Keanu Reeves does have a "deliberately morose energy level in the movie". It's called acting, that's what he does and what has made him an A-list celebrity. His character is morose for a reason. So would you be if you knew you were going to Hell to be torn apart over and over again for all eternity. He's also a rude asshole with a cold demeanour but a kind heart. Constantine is a multi-layered character hidden under a two-dimensional one which Keanu Reeves excels at bringing to life. That's what should have been said.

So what if Constantine keeps on smoking? It's even mentioned by his doctor. As if closing the stable door after the horse has bolted will make any difference once you have inoperable lung cancer! If you are addicted to smoking, it isn't that easy to stop even though you know it's killing you.

All Roger Ebert got from Peter Stomare's outstanding performance as Satan was that he wore a white suit. Jesus wept! This is what famous movie critics get paid for? I might as well say, "Roger Ebert has grey hair. Now send me $20,000 for stating the obvious!" Why no mention of Gavin Rossdale's equally sinister performance as Balthazar? Wasn't there some snarky comment Roger could make about the dapper way he was dressed?

Yes, the plot involves the Spear of Destiny. It also appears in a lot of other movies which don't contain Nazi villains. Google is your friend for that one. If you want more of the same, read Trevor Ravenscoft's "The Spear of Destiny: The Occult Power Behind the Spear which pierced the side of Christ" or even James Herbert's "The Spear". Those will sort you right out.

Roger Ebert, you are an overpaid idiot! "Constantine" is a great movie with a cult following which you will never have. Your time is over, dinosaur. Go watch penguins dressed up as football players and leave the movies to people who aren't too burnt out to enjoy them.

Fear No Evil (1981)

"High school student turns out to be personification of Lucifer. Two arch angels in human form (as women) take him on."

I had very fond memories of "Fear No Evil" (even though I couldn't remember the name of it for the longest time) and so I'm sad to report that I have now ruined them all by rewatching this new Anchor Bay DVD.

It's hard to believe that the writer/director, Frank LaLoggia, was also responsible for one of my favourite ghost stories from the '80s, "Lady in White" (1988). There's not even a suggestion that he would have even been capable of such nostalgic brilliance in this lacklustre and confusing cheesefest.

Mitigating circumstances, including Frank LaLoggia's youth and the woefully inadequate budget for what he wanted to do, are no excuse for how lifeless the story actually turned out to be. If you pay close enough attention to the dialogue, it's all either contrived or somewhat pompous depending on which characters are involved. The high school students don't sound like any that you would have encountered in real life at that time and there's far too much "speechifying" (for lack of a better word) from the angels.

Aside from the exceptionally poor acting from a cast who were mostly too old to be real teenagers, "Fear No Evil" is notable for having a pretty good soundtrack full of late '70s and early '80s bands. I'm not going to list them as it would spoil the fun of playing "Name That Tune" should you ever rent this yourselves from Netflix. Even if you are too young to remember the '80s, you'll still recognise the songs as they are all very well known.

The thing which I remembered most from "Fear No Evil", though I'll freely admit that I remembered it wrongly, was the shower scene where the evil and effeminate Andrew got kissed by the school bully. Some people might think that a "gay kiss" in a horror movie was somewhat groundbreaking at the time but I think we should all know better than that. It may have been controversial in American movies but European filmmakers had been putting stuff like that in (and much worse) years before especially in the vampire genre. Although undoubtedly there are a lot of homoerotic moments in "Fear No Evil", it isn't a "gay" film as such and, even from my own heterosexual perspective, I think it fair to say that Andrew (Stefan Arngrim) was far too creepy and weird to be attractive in that way.

I actually falsely remembered the shower scene with Tony the bully turning into a woman during the whole snogging session. Obviously I couldn't have payed too much attention to it when I watched the film on VHS back in the day as that part came much later. Not to put too finer point on it, the macho John Travolta wannabe wasn't exactly thrilled with his free boob job.

As far as other horrific moments go, there wasn't anything particularly scary about "Fear No Evil" so it was appropriately named. There were a few gory moments here and there but they weren't all that realistic looking. A death by dodgeball defied even more laws of physics than the infamous basketball decapitation in "Deadly Friend" (1986).

The most annoying thing about "Fear No Evil" was the confusion caused by all the gender swapping archangels and how they were referred to by different names depending on who they were sharing a scene with. I could watch this film half a dozen times over and still not be able to tell you who played who or what their names were if quizzed on it afterwards though I can't say that I would even care to try to either.

The whole religious "devil versus angels" angle to this film was far too ambitious and not handled at all well. As much as I've moaned about "The Final Conflict" (1981) before now, all the Omen films were far superior to this. The final battle in "Fear No Evil" was a mixture of some of the worst effects since the end of "The Manitou" (1978) plus a ton of equally dated animation. Even worse than that, it was also a very lame anticlimax.

To say that I was disappointed by "Fear No Evil" is an understatement especially as I waited over 20 years to watch it again. Like so many '80s horror films which a lot of us look back on with rose-tinted glasses, "Fear No Evil" was actually quite a poor product even when it first came out but I just didn't realise it. I don't think that a modern audience would be capable of watching it without much beer-induced mockery and it's probably for the best. "Fear No Evil" wasn't a fun film at all and was far too serious in tone for something that dealt with such far-fetched subject matter.