While I am not a fan of vampires/werewolves/and not really human beings type of movies we had nothing else to go see. And, as we were leaving, we realized the movie had been 2 hours long and we had not been aware of it. So we started to pick it apart and came to the conclusion we had enjoyed it. Surprise! The movie has only one or two actors I even knew and a group of young ones I did not. But we agreed they did a very good job of acting. There was an interesting story and not a bunch of bloody scenes to gross one out (such as myself who does not care for vampires,at all) and a sweet love story with the twist that was needed to make it an impossible one. Actually looking forward to the second one. Told by my daughter there are 3 Twilight films. Cannot claim to have watched any of the movies with the woman who shall remain nameless (lol) and her vampire lover and the werewolf who loved her too. Because they just looked to be not worth my time and money. Cannot say I liked anyone of the actors in it either. But did like the ones in this movie.This is a group of Shadowhunters who find and destroy demons that live among us. The Shadowhunters cannot be seen by humans. While killing one such demon, one of them is seen by what seems to be a human and, knowing it is not possible, he follows her. It turns out she the most powerful Shadowhunter of them all and does not know it because her mother took her and hid her. Her father has been trying to find her because she holds the clue to a cup he needs to control the entire underworld. All in all, I give it a good 7 because it held my attention for 2 hours.
Cat Says:
We went to go see this movie the other day simply because there wasn't anything out there to see and we wanted to get out of the house and see a movie. I'm a fan of Jonathan Rhys Meyers so I figured, what the heck, why not give it a try and hope it wasn't worse than Twilight. I know, I know, there are a lot of Twilight fans out there, I'm just not one of them. The main reason being the cast. I didn't have that issue with this film.
This movie is a mash up of Twilight, Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lily Collins (Singer Phil Collins daughter) plays Clary. Like in Potter and Buffy, Clary has no idea that she is a Shadow Hunter (part human, part angel that hunts demons) until suppressed childhood memories break through. She suddenly can see other Shadow Hunters who are invisible to the regular human eye and it, well, understandably freaks her out. She has a best friend who, of course, is in love with her, named Simon (Robert Sheehan plays this role with just enough geekiness and just enough on-the-edge-of hunkiness that it makes it more fun) and she finds herself in an uncomfortable situation, not really a love triangle, with the Shadow Hunter, Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower plays this role convincingly but he's not really Hollywood beautiful so it's more interesting too) who decides to help her out even before learning who she is.
She finds out that she has been suppressing some pretty powerful memories including who her father is (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who is hunky as always with that edge of evil attached) and how her mother, who is kidnapped in the beginning, hid them both for years and how this fits into his scheme and the whole puzzle. When the puzzle finally comes together and all of the pieces fit Clary finds herself having to save her mother and her world. Not the big scale problem of saving THE world but you get the feeling that saving her world is just the tip of the iceberg and that we are going to see another installment in this story. They do wrap this one up neatly though so if it ends up being the only one you won't be left hanging.
The special effects are very good. There are times when you know that what you are looking at isn't real but it sure looks real! There is violence, of course, in the battle scenes but they don't get gory with it and killing is pretty much hidden from camera view while getting the point across that this is what is happening. The demons are gross and creepy at times but, like the violence, it's brief. Because of this I think you can go a few years under the "13" of the rating if you have a 9 year old or older who wants to go see it.
The issues here are really with the lightweight Stephanie Meyer/Twilight type script writing (and since this is also based on a "teen" book series by Cassandra Clare) I guess that is to be expected) which will make you roll your eyes from time to time or think "wow, he actually said that with a straight face!" moments but they are brief and mildly distracting. The movie is 2 hours and 10 minutes long and it never felt like it was dragging or too long so I always find that to be a good sign especially when I am watching a movie that is a genre I don't usually like. I give it a solid 8 out of 10. Do you need to go see it in the theater, well, no, it could wait for DVD. BUT, and especially, if this is a genre you normally go to see then I think you will love it and it will be even better on the Big Screen!
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