At some point I wonder how teens can find proof of mystical existence all that surprising. Think about it — the phrase, “really, I’m a witch?!” with incredulous undertones gets said at least five times a year at the cinema. Every other show on TV these days involves a vampire. Say, has anybody made “CSI: Transylvania” or “Dracula General Hospital” yet? Remind me to trademark those.
Bottom line: if you are a modern American teen with an average number of “WTF?” moments, are you really gonna be surprised when you come home to find your mother has vanished into another dimension and some sort of demon-lizard hound in her place? I think not.
Now let me describe the kind of film The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is. On the same day Clary (Lily Collins) discovers she sees things others do not, her mother is attacked in their apartment. Clary returns to a wrecked apartment, blows up the demon dog with a stove gas explosion, whence it returns again only to be destroyed a second time by the hunky, tattoed Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower). Meanwhile, the neighbors haven’t budged an inch. Nobody has called the police or fire department and the downstairs medium decides the best thing to do is break out tarot cards. This is the type of film in which “mundanes” are introduced to weapons equal to vampires and werewolves, but “zombies don’t exist.” Yeah, that one was just silly – what was I thinking?
Of course, these terrible teen fantasy indulgences don’t work without a love triangle, so we make sure to add friend-zone Simon (Robert Sheehan) to the mix. Simon gets romantically denied, kidnapped by vampires on her behalf, forcibly thrust into a fantastical world of lethal pain where he 
doesn’t belong, and he’s still smitten with Clary. You want to laugh, but his hapless puppy dog devotion is probably the most realistic part of the movie.
Wow, is it a great time to be a personality challenged coed teen or what? Mumble a few things, get confused easily, watch fights from the sidelines, and the hot guys will be banging down your doors, won’t they? Luckily, this particular crisis is solved by a healthy dose of incest. No kidding.
There’s a plot here somewhere. See, this Robert Downey, Jr. wannabe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) stole a cup that allows one to control demons or something like that. Now, everybody’s after the cup because Clary’s mom stole it a hid it somewhere. Nice of her to tell Clary in case, you know, something horrible happened. And something horrible did happen. I call it Mortal Instrument: City of Bones.
Get out your tarot
Get out your sword
Put away all things frilly.
The demons are here
And so are the vamps
Zombies? Hey, don’t be silly
That kid in the leather
Who can’t yet shave
Let’s get into somethin’ weird
Wait a sec
Is he your brother?
Ugh, it’s worse than I feared.
Rated PG-13, 130 Minutes
D: Harald Zwart
W: Jessica Postigo
Genre: Twi-lite
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: 15-year-old drama queens who long for a leather-clad tattoed hunk to come fight battles
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Boyfriend material
