"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" (Metro 23/08/13)

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (12A) 130 mins **

Still they come, trying to fill that Potter/Twilight shaped gap in the market. This unashamedly derivative adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s YA series-launcher wants to be the dark, “sexy” replacement franchise, immediately pitching itself at the 12A crowd, where Harry P. and Percy J. warmed us up with a few PGs. So it is that our rune-doodling heroine (Lily Collins) first clocks she’s been born into a secret society of high-cheekboned, dullard demonslayers while visiting the kind of Gothy nightspot once showcased in Placebo promos. Between laborious exposition and the inevitable low-watt love triangle, the violence gets cranked up to misjudged levels: its slice-and-dice fight scenes will likely petrify the young, while anyone beyond 14 may feel themselves growing out of this daft material as it drones into its third hour. Couldn’t we have had another Spiderwick Chronicle or Lemony Snicket instead?

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is in cinemas nationwide.