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The Mortal Instruments is a series of six young adult fantasy novels written by Cassandra Clare, of which five have been published so far. City of Bones is the first book of the series. 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. This is the first one out of the box for this series and hopefully the box office reception was adequate for its continuation. Certainly if the puerile Twilight series made it all the way to the end; hopefully this one will as well. I would say the series is written for the the adolescent rather than young adult. Although a children’s fantasy, Harry Potter appealed to all ages who still believe in fantasy. No deep theological message here, but a decent bit of entertainment. I am not sure that we will ever see another J.R.R. Tolkien, although George R. R. Martin comes close with Game of Thrones. Tolkein does have a hero in the end, our dear Frodo. I am not sure that that such will exist in Game of Thrones because just when you think you have identified a character who will triumph over evil, they get killed. Anyway, back to City of Bones. The movie was entertaining albeit somewhat predictable. I found it interesting that they picked up two actors who have both played British kings: Jamie Campbell Bower as King Arthur in the Starz Camelot series. He also starred in the Twilight sagas as well. Unfortunately, Camelot ran only for one season despite the numerous award nominations it garnered. Johnathan Rhys-Meyers who played King Henry VIII in the Showtime series that ran for 4 seasons – a pretty short time to go through 8 wives.

City of Bones is a good little movie that does not try to make any real social statement – just entertainment. I am looking forward to the next one of the series.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.