The Movie Was Craptastic: The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones

Note: I wrote this post on Tuesday night straight after watching the movie, but everyone was under embargo until today. So here it is!

Wow. That was bad. That was really, really bad. I just watched The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones and it was laughable. Like I literally laughed out loud in several places. When I don't think I was meant to. But even though it was terrible, it was still pretty entertaining. 

What I liked

• I thought the cast were pretty great and fit their characters well. Lily Collins is GORGEOUS and a great Clary, and even Jamie Campbell Bower, who I had my doubts about, was good as Jace. He did have the whole angelic/lion-like thing happening, although I didn't find it particularly attractive. My one gripe with the cast is that the actors playing Isabelle and Alec, although talented, look like they're about 30. No way can they pass as teenagers, even the Hollywood version of teenagers.
• There's a line inserted that makes the big twist less WTF-worthy. Though it's still pretty WTF. And the line didn't make sense with what followed. But whatevs, I think they needed to include something like that.
• The action scenes were well done. Isabelle with a flame-thrower thingy (I'm all up on the weaponry terms, clearly) was awesome.
• There's some funny dialogue. Intentionally funny. But there's also a helluva lot of unintentionally funny dialogue, which brings me to...

What I didn't like

• There are many laughably bad moments. Including some awful, awful dialogue and characters doing really stupid things. It really dragged the movie down.
• It's completely action-packed, with major events jammed in all together, which is fun, but it also means there's not a lot of emotional depth. I didn't get a good sense of Clary's worry about her mum, her shock at discovering the Shadowhunter world, or her feelings building for Jace. It all happens too quickly.
• The soundtrack is pretty bad, and there's one scene in particular (the greenhouse scene) where the music is overbearing and completely ruins the mood, rather than enhancing it. It was so cheesy, and I was laughing when I wanted to be swooning.
• The steles looked plastic. Hodge's bird looked like a puppet. The greenhouse... don't even get me started on the fake flowers and general terribleness.
• Valentine has these terrible fake plaits attached to the back of his head for no apparent reason and they made me irrationally angry.
• Watching it on screen, the Harry Potter stealing influence was more obvious than ever.

I was still entertained, but it was one of the worst movies I've seen this year. And I've watched Sharknado. If you're a fan of the book you'll probably like it. I think it was actually better than the book (although looking back, I gave the book three stars - I think I was more patient and generous back then, ha). Otherwise, maybe wait for DVD. And take a drink every time someone says or does something stupid or cheesy. You'll be passed out halfway through.

Rating: 2/5

Review: Legend By Marie Lu

Set in a dystopian future, in a Los Angeles that is at war, plague-ridden and divided, Legend is told from two perspectives: that of Day, a Robin Hood-like fugitive trying to protect those he loves, and June, a Government golden girl bent on avenging her lost brother. They're both strong characters, but while Day is easy to like, June took a while to warm to. It was so obvious the Republic was evil, and yet she was on their side for much of the book, making it hard to sympathise with her. Of course, she's a privileged teen who has been brought up to believe in her Government, so it's natural for her to have that viewpoint, but then again, she's supposed to be a freaking prodigy, so it was extremely frustrating that she took so long to figure things out - and even then, she couldn't do it on her own. It was a bit unbelievable and made it hard to really get behind her.

Day, on the other hand, was the underdog from the start - and who can resist the underdog?! Not June, that's for sure. Their romance was inevitable, but perhaps because I didn't particularly like June, I didn't really feel any chemistry between them. I could see why they were a good fit for each other, but I just wasn't aching for them to get together. It was also difficult to believe that both Day and June were 15. Even taking into account all they've been through, they didn't really feel like 15-year-olds at all. I know it's YA, but I don't get why they need to be SO young - you could make the characters 18 and it wouldn't make any difference. If anything, it would make it feel slightly more authentic.

The story itself was good and fast-paced, and I was glad to see that it was quite different from The Hunger Games (the only other YA dystopian I've read), but unfortunately it was pretty predictable. On the plus side, Lu's world-building was strong, and although I would have liked a bit more detail about the history of the Republic, it did feel like a realistic (if terrifying) possibility. Lu's writing was smooth and it's a credit to her that, after just reading a book written in the present tense and not enjoying the style, I didn't even notice until I was near the end of Legend that it, too, was written in the present tense. It was so effective and fluid I didn't consciously register it or feel put off at all.

One little niggle I have to express - and it's not with Legend in particular, but with what seems to be most YA books these days - is that the story isn't contained within one book. It's not that I don't like series, because I do, but I still feel that within a series, each book should tell a complete story even if there's a larger story arc. Legend did do this to some degree, but there were a few threads left hanging that irked me a bit. If it wasn't a consistent thing across many series, it probably wouldn't have bothered me at all. As it is, it just made me roll my eyes. All in all, Legend was a good book that didn't quite blow me away.

Rating: 3.5/5

Eye Candy
Day is described as Caucasian/Mongolian, with white-blonde, long hair, piercing blue eyes and a beautiful face. He was tough to "cast", but I imagined him as Jamie Campbell Bower:

June is athletic, with dark hair and black-gold eyes (side note: have you ever met anyone with black eyes? I don't think I have. They seem to crop up a bit in fiction). I pictured Nina Dobrev (June totally wears a pretty white gown in the book, so I thought this pic was appropriate):

Fine Print
Genre: Dystopian/Young Adult
Published: December 2011, Razorbill
Get It: Book Depository

Review: The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock

The Book of Lies was a fascinating read not just for its page-turning story, but also for the themes it explores.

 

One of the themes is, as the title suggests, lies - in particular, the devastating damage they can cause, no matter how small, off-hand or innocent they seem at the time. But what I found most interesting was its exploration of the truth - and, by extension, history - beautifully demonstrating how subjective it is, and how one person's truth is another's lie. We each experience events in our own unique way, with our own version or interpretation of the truth.

This point is emphasised through the use of two different narrators - both 15, both living on the island of Guernsey - only 40 years apart. The first narrator we meet is the precocious, overweight, bookish outsider Cat, who, she tells us, has killed her best friend, the beautiful and totally bitchy Nicolette. In the next chapter we're introduced to Charlie, Cat's uncle, as he describes events on Guernsey 40 years earlier, when he too made a fateful friend and apparently caused a death. The book continues to alternate between Cat's and Charlie's stories, revealing details in such a way as to emphasise the parallels between the two and underscore the precariousness of the truth.

The Book of Lies works so well because Horlock interweaves these two stories wonderfully, switching between the voices of an '80s schoolgirl and a WWII survivor with such skill that it's never jarring. While both characters are strong, it was Cat's narration that I most enjoyed - not because she was a particularly likable character (she's downright horrid at times), but because she was so authentic. With her melodramatic emotions, delight in big words, desperation to fit in and awkwardness around the guy she likes, I recognised in Cat girls I knew at high school and, dare I say, even myself (dead best friend notwithstanding). My heart went out to both her and Charlie, and ached as the reality of their situations was slowly revealed. Overall, The Book of Lies was a captivating, quick and enjoyable read.

Rating: 4/5

Spoilery Talking Points

• I was a little disappointed with the ending - while I liked the "twist", I didn't really like the abruptness of it. I wanted some closure for Cat's story, including how her mum thought/acted after finding out the truth, and whether Michael really was going to run away with her.
• I kept on waiting for some kind of connection between Michael and Nicolette and/or Michael and Donnie. It seemed like there was some kind of twisted love triangle happening behind the scenes there, outside of Cat's version of events.
• The story of Charlie's mother and father broke my heart. La Duchesse: what a bitch!
• A bonus to Charlie's story was learning about the German Occupation of Guernsey during WWII - I didn't know much at all about this aspect of the war, and it makes me want to investigate further.

Eye Candy
I pictured...

Alison Pill as Cat

Eddie Redmayne as Charlie

Jamie Campbell Bower as Michael

Matt Smith as Mr McCracken

Tamsin Egerton as Nicolette

Fine Print
Source: NetGalley
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: July 2011
Get It: Fishpond