Jersey Girl (2004)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2004
	Director: Kevin Smith (Clerks 1&2, Dogma, Red State)
	Actors: Ben Affleck (Paycheck, Pearl Harbor), Liv Tyler (Armageddon, The Lord of the Rings 1-3), Raquel Castro, Jason Biggs (American Pie), George Carlin (Dogma)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 29.06.2014, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Ollie Trinke (Affleck), a sucessful publicist, will lose everything and learn to be a father.
Review: In what I have recently read about Kevin Smith and during his show Too Fat for 40, it is often made allusion to Jersey Girl, and it is always made fun of it. I thought it was because it is a bad movie, but not at all. I found it to be a very good and emotional mix of Drama, Comedy and Romance. Most of all it is the very touching story of a father giving up his former life to raise his little girl. Probably Jersey Girl is made fun of because it was the first movie by Kevin Smith which does not take place in the ViewAskewniverse as it is called, i.e. this universe in which you meet Jay and Silent Bob, Dante, Randal, etc... and in which people talk always about Star Wars, movies, and getting laid. Well, you get a little of classic Kevin Smith in Jersey Girl, some allusions, references, and the mandatory scenes in a Video Store, making this place a must-be in any good American's life. So it is far from what the fans expected and they got dissapointed. It was not the case for me. It did surprise me (I didn't expect such a Romance knowing the guy) but pleasantly. My only critic would be that the music is sometimes too present and too loud, like I felt already in Cop Out. Writing this movie to direct it in 2004 is obviously linked to the birth of Kevin Smith's daughter Harley Quinn in 1999, and he expressed his feelings the best way he know how to do: by making a movie about it.
Rating: 7 /10

Too Fat for 40 (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Zak Charles Knutson
	Actors: Kevin Smith (Die Hard 4.0)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 26.06.2014, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: A Q&A organized by the stand-up comedian/actor/director on the day of his 40th birthday in his home town.
Review: Kevin Smith is not only known for the movies he directed like Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma... He is also known to be very funny when answering questions from fans, be it at Comicon, on Internet, or at dedicated Q&A shows he organizes in theaters. Those shows are usually planned to last two hours but can extend up to seven hours! Too Fat for 40 is neither a movie nor a documentary, but the DVD of a 4-hour long show that I bought in preparation to the NIFFF2014, so I decided to review it here. The title refers to the fact that Smith made hear about himself a lot when he was refused to board a plane because of being too large. But he talks only a little about that incident during the show. Actually he makes an introduction of about 30 minutes, then a guy asks one question (basically how was it to work with Bruce Willis on Cop Out) and Smith takes three hours to answer it! During that time he will have spoken about his acquisition of a bus allowing him to avoid airlines, his first experiences of smoking Marijuana and his recent new status of Stoner, the sexual habits of his couple, his friends, the relative failure of Zack and Miri make a Porn, leading him to direct for the first time a movie written by someone else and starring one of his idols: Bruce Willis. After humorously describing the special character of the 80's action hero with many anecdotes, he finally answered the one question. On a second DVD, we get to see him answer (shorty this time) about 6 questions asked as Encore to the main show. All of it is rather funny (especially the part about Bruce Willis), often with strong language but not abusively, and educational about being a director.
Rating: 6 /10

Tournée (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Mathieu Amalric
	Actors: Mathieu Amalric, Miranda Colclasure, Suzanne Ramsey, Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz, Angela de Lorenzo, Alexander Craven
	Country: F
	Genre: Comedy, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 21.06.2014, Bluray
Synopsis: Joachim (Amalric) produces a team of New burlesque strip-tease performers. They all dream about Paris but are actually traveling from port to port. The showgirls invent an extravagant fantasy world of warmth and hedonism, despite the constant round of impersonal hotels with their endless elevator music and the lack of money.
Review: Apart from the story on difficulties for the production of a Burlesque show, I expected a discussion of the artistic ideas of this performance. But no. It is a movie on a narcissic producer while actually the more interesting part was when the artists talk about the reasons why they are doing that, what they feel during the show. It might be an image of the indie film industry. I appreciated Amalric until now therefore I do not think that this movie is so narcissic.  The camera driving is particularly good for the close-ups. In total much less interesting than expected.
Rating: 3 /10

The young and prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013)

	Also Known As: Die Karte meiner Träume
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
	Actors: Kyle Catlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Callum Keith Rennie, Niamh Wilson, Jakob Davies
	Country: CDN, F
	Genre: Adventure
	Conditions of visioning: 23.06.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: The ten-year-old T.S. (Catlett) secretly leaves his family's ranch in Montana where he lives with his cowboy father (Rennie) and scientist mother (Bonham Carter) and travels across the country aboard a freight train to receive an award at the Smithsonian Institute.
Review: The language of Jean-Pierre Jeunet did not change since Amélie. The light SFX are at the right place and just to enhance the story. The story is good for kids as it motivates to be proud of being good at school, what is usually difficult today. On this road movie, Catlett meets several mentors helping him for each step. The casting of the whole family is very good. They all have the expression of their role.  For me the directing gives a touch like the traditional tales and for this it is a pleasant movie.
Rating: 4 /10

Desert dancer (2015)

	Also Known As: Wüstentänzer
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: Richard Raymond
	Actors: Freida Pinto, Reece Ritchie
	Country: GB
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 16.06.2014, Schauburg, OV sneak preview
Synopsis: The film is based on a true story. Afshin Ghaffarian (Ritchie) likes dancing since kid and decides to learn it seriously. Problem is that in Iran dancing is forbidden. His friends see a freedom of expression they do not have otherwise. As they meet a new dancer, Elaheh (Pinto), who really can dance, they learn a lot and aim at performing in the desert.
Review: I sounds strange to have a movie planned to be released in 2015 having a review in June 2014. But this is the advantage of the sneak preview of the movie theater Schauburg. I will do a special article about that to explain a bit better what it is. The young Afshin likes dancing. But this is forbidden in the islamic republic of Iran. From this plot the story developps the antagonism of a police state forbidding any expression form and a group of young adults that need to express themselves. The greatest antagonism has nothing to do with dance but with the brother of one of the students who is part of the political milice.  The actors speak English with an accent that may sound Iranian. The feelings of an adequate voice is a bit lost. The performance is still great due to the body language and the face language. And this is the main conflict I see in the movie. The antagonism is shown in a beautiful form via the actors. Also the bad guys have a very remarkable language. The story telling with the off-tone gives a lot of authenticity. The directing has then not much to do to transmit this authenticity and the feelings of freedom searched by the group. The dancing scenes between Pinto and Ritchie are beautifully filmed with a camera in fluid movements and with fine sensitivity.
Rating: 7 /10 Modern dance scene and the camera turns around the couple

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2004
	Director: David Twohy (Pitch Black)
	Actors: Vin Diesel (xXx, The Pacifier), Judi Dench (James Bond: Skyfall), Colm Feore (Thor), Karl Urban (The Lord of the Rings 1-2, Dredd), Thandie Newton (Mission: Impossible II)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 25.06.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: The most wanted man in the Universe, Riddick (Diesel) has to come back to civilization after five years of hiding. He will find a world being invaded by the Necromongers and may have to fight, once again, a fight that is not his own.
Review: I am watching the Riddick movies in the wrong order, or maybe one could say from the less good to the best. I started with the disappointing Riddick in April, and now watched the previous movie The Chronicles of Riddick that I knew to be easy to watch. What I didn't expect was that I had bought the extended version, introduced by David Thowy. It adds some 15 minutes of scenes not always very useful, but never completely useless as they deepen the character development and the mythology of the Furyans. The space opera scenes are not bad (space battles, world invasions, Underverse, trips to various planets) although the editing of the fights is sometimes epileptic and hard to follow. The scene in which the convicts run on the surface of a planet ahead of the sunrise that will burn everything, while the wardens run underground, is brilliant. The whole movie is full Action, poses and punchlines by Riddick, in a global mix that is not too bad. After watching it, the following one really looks like an exaggeration of it: more action, more poses, more punchlines, in the settings of the original Pitch Black, that I have to watch soon to complete the series (I will not watch Dark Fury again).
Rating: 6 /10

La Gifle (1974)

	Also Known As: The Slap (English), Die Ohrfeige (German)
	Year of first release: 1974
	Director: Claude Pinoteau (La Boum 1 & 2, Le Silencieux)
	Actors: Lino Ventura (Les Tontons Flingueurs), Annie Girardot (La Zizanie), Isabelle Adjani (L'Été Meurtrier), Francis Perrin
	Country: F, I
	Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 24.06.2014, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Jean (Ventura) and his partner are raising his 18 year old daughter (Adjani) while her mother (Girardot) lives in Australia.
Review:  I bought a Lino Ventura DVD box-set containing Le Silencieux, La Gifle, La 7ème cible and a documentary on Lino Ventura seen by the director Claude Pinoteau. While the other two movies are polars, this one is different but by the same director. I wanted to classify it as Drama but it would be a light one then, and I have seen it tagged with Comedy and Romance, why not, a little. Actually it is the simple story of an 18 year old girl at a critical time in her life, in her studies, in her love life, in the relationship with her parents. And at that age life revolves around little moments of drama, comedy and romance. The girl is played wonderfully by Isabelle Adjani for her first movie in a leading role and probably the one that started her career. A famous trivia is that the slap she received by Lino Ventura, supposed to be fake, ended up being a real one by accident, and Ventura being an ex-wrestler she must have felt it quite hard! About the slap, it is the title of the movie and the moment is short an unimpressive as such, but what is brilliant in this movie is the succession of events and the tension rising up to the slap, as well as the events it triggers, as if it had unlocked the young girl who was apparently stuck in her life until that moment. The couple Ventura/Adjani is touching and their reactions believable so that when things go bad, you really feel like you don't ever want to have a teenage daughter to care for. This seems to be hell. I found the last third of the movie (actually not long after the slap) to be a bit too elliptic, but this was probably done on purpose to keep the rhythm in a movie that would have otherwise been too long. For this second movie that I watch in the aforementioned box-set, as for the first, the image and sound quality are very good for a DVD. It is only a pity that those movies don't exist in Blu-ray yet. I am sure it would render the facial expression of the actors even better. I am thinking in particular about the very last moments of the movie, focused on Ventura's face.
Rating: 9 /10

Cop Out (2010)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2010
	Director: Kevin Smith (Dogma, Red State)
	Actors:  Bruce Willis (Die Hard 1-5, Looper), Tracy Morgan, Juan Carlos Hernández, Sean William Scott (Dude where is my Car?, American Pie)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 23.06.2014, SD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Two average cops, old partners in the Police (Willis & Morgan) are suspended after screwing up an drug bust. They keep on their work anyway to find the baseball card one of them was stolen and that would help him pay for his daughter's wedding.
Review: I had this movie on my Maxdome.de list for a while and only now learned it had been directed by Kevin Smith, so I watched it in preparation to the NIFFF14 where the director will be present. Until now I had only seen movies that Smith wrote and directed, and it is easy to notice the difference with this only he only directed: the dialogs are flat and the jokes not funny, even if they are crude and could be assimilated to his usual "style". The only moments that made me laugh are the ones with Sean William Scott playing an unbearable Yamakasi thief. The movie is not badly shot but the story is just not interesting and too long. I don't know why Smith accepted to shoot this movie, maybe he saw a comic potential that never materialized, or he just needed to pay some bills. Anyway after this, he promised himself never to direct anymore a movie written by somebody else. That tells you something about how he lived the experience...
Rating: 3 /10

The Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) 2014

Summer is at our doorstep so it is the right time for Festivals. I am not talking only about the ones outdoors with music bands, barbecues, beer and camping. Oddly enough, summer is also the time to lock ourselves into dark rooms and participate to movie festivals.
The Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival will start in less than two weeks in this nice little town alongside a lake in Switzerland. It will last from July 4th to 12th and JoRafCinema will have the opportunity to participate to the last three days.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1949
	Director: John Ford (Rio Grande, The Searchers)
	Actors: John Wayne (True Grit), Joanne Dru, John Agar
	Country: USA
	Genre: Western
	Conditions of visioning: 22.06.2014, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Less than a week before he retires, Captain Nathan Brittles (Wayne) of the US Cavalry goes on a last mission to keep the Indians away from the border.
Review: Although it was shot during the golden age of the American Western, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon starts to show something different, particularly in the fact that it displays a retiring John Wayne. I think to remember this is what I read about it in the Mad Movies magazine that motivated me to purchase the DVD. The story is also different than usual, within the Western genre it is not a Cowboys movie but more an Indians and Cavalry one, and the Cavalry is not somewhere defending a fort but on patrol, escorting two ladies. The rhythm of the action is a bit odd, and gets worse after one hour into the movie, which is what displeased me the most about it. The acting is otherwise regular for a movie of that time (i.e. a bit overdone) and the heroic music too present to my taste. Also the romance story seems a bit out of place. The movie won an academy award for its cinematography, but unfortunately the quality of the DVD is quite poor (colors, resolution, contrast...) and the Blu-ray edition is yet to come, so I couldn't enjoy that side of it. I could see that the landscapes of Monument Valley were beautiful, I know them, I've been there, but it seems easy to make a good-looking movie by shooting in that area, like Ford already did in The Searchers. The last sentence of the movie "[...] they were all the same: men in dirty-shirt blue and only a cold page in the history books to mark their passing. But wherever they rode - and whatever they fought for - that place became the United States"omits to mention that what they were mainly fighting against were the Indians, a people who were there in the first place. Fortunately the Westerns of the 70's-80's will give a fairer view of the Native Americans. So in conclusion, I enjoyed watching a classic Western, but I didn't like it particularly.
Rating: 5 /10

The Mouse that Roared (1959)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1959
	Director: Jack Arnold (It Came fromOuter Space, The Incredible Shrinking Man)
	Actors: Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther, The Ladykillers), Jean Seberg, William Hartnell
	Country: GB
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 21.06.2014, DVD, 11" computer screen
Synopsis: The Grand Duchy of Fenwick, a small country lost in the European Alps, declares war to the USA and sends 20 men to invade the enemy country, in the hope of losing and benefiting from compensations by the USA.
Review: Quite unknown movie to me, I heard about it from a New-Zealander colleague. It is more than 50 years old, but one can still smile at the British absurd humor it is filled with. It is funny the watch those guys in armor wandering in New-York and unwillingly outsmarting the greater nation. And they do it because of a story of wine exportation! International politics and its actors are turned to ridiculous while the bunch of 20 soldiers discreetly make their way back home. Special effects and sound effects are cheap (which makes them funny at times), but it doesn't matter and a DVD quality is good enough to admire Peter Sellers play three different roles. I am glad to have discovered The Mouse that Roared.
Rating: 6 /10

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1962
	Director: David Lean (Doctor Zhivago, The Bridge on the River Kwai)
	Actors: Peter O'Toole (Caligula, Troy), Alec Guinness (Star Wars IV, The Bridge on the River Kwai), Anthony Quinn (The Guns of Navarone), Omar Sharif (Doctor Zhivago, The 13th Warrior), Anthony Quayle (The Guns of Navarone)
	Country: GB, USA
	Genre: Epic
	Conditions of visioning: 15.06.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: During the first World War, T. E. Lawrence (O'Toole) is a slightly excentric British soldier, not really at ease with his position in Cairo. He will be sent to meet the initiator of the Arab rebellion against the Turks: Prince Feisal (Guiness), and will become himself part of the rebellion.
Review: I placed this Blu-ray on my wish list after watching a few scenes of it in Prometheus, and learning that Michael Fassbender has tried to copy Peter O'Toole for his acting. It took me some time to watch it because it does last almost four hours. As some other long movies from that period (Cleopatra, Doctor Zhivago, Ben Hur...), it starts with 5-10 minutes of symphonic music on a dark screen and includes an intermission at the middle of the movie with music again (wonderfully composed by Maurice Jarre in that case). This is nice and forces you to slowly get into the movie before it even starts. It also divides the movie in two parts of the story. In the case of Lawrence of Arabia, I loved the first part: the involving story, the majesty of the landscapes that cannot be emphasized enough, the quality of the cinematography (the scenes are perfectly framed and all of their points are perfectly in focus), the acting by O'toole, Guiness, Quinn ad others, and the pristine quality of the Blu-ray edition. This last point is of the utmost importance when for example you see a man mounting a camel arriving from the horizon towards the viewer, mixed with a mirage, and being at the beginning no more than one dark pixel against the white and blue background. Such detail must be completely lost on a lower resolution image, and the viewer that doesn't see the black pixel will wonder why we spend so much time showing the horizon! I liked the second part less, when Lawrence's character changes. Moreover, although the rebellion comes to a high point, I found that the stakes were less involving than in the first part. This is why the movie didn't get a 10/10. Also maybe because it feels strange that Arabs lords are played by the British and American actors Guiness and Quinn, although their make-up is extremely well done and I didn't recognize them at first, and their great acting makes up for the odd choice. By the way Alec Guiness with a beard and wearing robes, involved in a rebellion in the desert has a certain feel of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Clearly one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen, and absolutely deserving its seven Academy Awards.
Rating: 9 /10

X-men 3: The Last Stand (2006)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2006
	Director: Brett Ratner (Rush Hour 1-3, Red Dragon)
	Actors: Patrick Stewart (Star Trek VII-X), Hugh Jackman (Real Steel, The Fountain), Halle Berry (The Call), Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Ringd 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Action, SF
	Conditions of visioning: 12.06.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Professor Xavier (Steward) and his team of X-men learn that a "cure" has been found against the mutant gene. This discovery will reveal new enemies and start a war between X-men and humans against the rebels lead by Magneto (McKellen).
Review: Since I watched Days of Future Past, I was curious the see again the movie that concluded the "original" X-men trilogy. Remember that Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) made a big hit with the two first X-men movies, was not chosen to direct this third one, came back by producing X-men: First Class (directed by Matthew Vaughn), and is now fully in charge of Days of Future Past and the upcoming Apocalypse. This change of direction for The Last Stand created some disappointments. I remember to have liked it when I first saw it (already 8 years ago!) but now that I saw it again knowing what Singer wanted to do for the second trilogy, I understand the reactions that created this movie, especially regarding the death/change of some characters. I found it useless that Magneto moves the whole San Francisco bridge, like I found useless that he moves a whole stadium in Days of Future Past. I preferred the scene involving this iconic bridge in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But all in all it is not bad, well if you like mutants/superhero movies of course. There are new mutants with interesting powers and the resolution of conflicts initiated in the first two movies. It repeats what the viewers liked in those movies and tries to take the human-mutants war to a conclusion, at least temporarily.
Rating: 5 /10

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (2005)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2005
	Director: Timo Vuorensola (Iron Sky)
	Actors: Antti Satama, Tiina Routamaa, Samuli Torssonen
	Country: FIN
	Genre: SF, Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 15.06.2014, DVD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Coming from the future but stuck in the early 21st century, Captain Pirk decides to build a futuristic ship, become emperor of the World, and attack the Earth in a parallel universe to solve our problem of overpopulation.
Review:  This was the first attempt by Timo Vuorensola at directing a movie financed by crowd funding, before he did much better with Iron Sky. No need to mention that it is supposed to be a parody of the Star Trek franchise, but a parody made by fans. For budgetary reasons it is obviously not as good as Galaxy Quest, a more famous movie in the same genre. The jokes are not often funny but the attempt at making this movie is noble. Note that it is available only in Finnish language with English sub-titles. Star Wreck looks like a movie made between friends, and it actually gets better and better as you go along, mainly thanks to generous space battles. They may have been rendered on home computers and look cheap, they are quite funny to watch, and actually more numerous than in the average Star Wars of Star Trek movie (even the recent ones) which is something that the Action fans can criticize from those big SF franchises. Recommended to the SF lovers and specialists only.
Rating: 3 /10

The Land That Time Forgot (2009)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2009
	Director: C. Thomas Howell
	Actors: C. Thomas Howell (E.T., Red Dawn), Timothy Bottoms, Lindsey McKeon
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 13.06.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A group of friends on a yacht encounter a magnetic storm and end up on an island hosting prehistoric animals.
Review: Not ten minutes in the movie and the group was already stranded, they have met a T-rex and Pterodactyles, and one of them was dead. So much for introducing the story and the characters! I bought this Blu-ray second-hand because it is presented in anaglyph 3D, with blue and red glasses and I thought this could be fun. But after 5 minutes I switched to the 2D version because the balance of the light between the two eyes was not even, and the colors gave me a headache. Unfortunately both versions are on the same disk, and the compression quality is poor so it looks like a DVD. The movie is produced by the same firm (The Asylum) that brought to you Dinocroc vs. Supergator or Sharknado and which is known for its cheap Fantasy movies, but The Land that Time Forgot is especially bad for its story, actors, dialogs and special effects. There is really nothing to salvage from this movie.
Rating: 0 /10

Rope (1948)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 1948
	Director: Alfred Hitchcock (The Birds, Torn Curtain)
	Actors: James Stewart (Topaz), John Dall, Farley Granger
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 11.06.2014, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: Two young men (Dall & Granger) murder a friends of theirs for the thrill of it. To top it, they invite family and friends of the deceased to a party in the same room.
Review: I had seen Rope decades ago on French television, and I thought to remember it was in Black&White, while in fact it is in bright Technicolor, the first movie by Hitchcock like this. It has an interesting back story, partly I knew, partly I learned when watching the 30-minutes documentary Rope Unleashed on the Blu-ray. The movie is inspired by a British play, itself inspired (but not openly) by the true story of two rich young men who murdered a friend of theirs just to see what would happen. As a challenge and to reproduce the effect of a theater, the movie was shot as several sequence shots, interrupted only when the camera reel was full (i.e. about every 10 minutes) and tentatively seamlessly (via transitions of filming the back of an actor in close-up). It is remarkable that the actors can hold such a good performance for 10 minutes in a row. This performance reminds me a little of the movie filmed live Fail Safe. I could understand the difficulty of trying to move the camera around a single room: chairs and furniture had to be displaced, walls dismounted while the actors were playing... This was not a piece of cake, but a fair challenge for the Master of Suspense. Note that it is surprising to see a movie shot in 4:3 format. There are supposed to be Gay connotations throughout the movie, mainly between the two friends and with their professor (Steward), but I didn't notice that. Now about the story: very simple and very efficient, although exaggerated as it can be when you portray two friends that commit the perfect murder and then display it to others. Dall, Granger and Steward are great in their respective roles: one of a calculating cold-blooded murderer, the other of a dominated "side-kick" eaten by remorse, and the third of a clever mentor that is the only one who can discover/understand what is going on. Altogether a very interesting movie.
Rating: 8 /10

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones (2013)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Harald Zwart (The Pink Panther 2)
	Actors: Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan (the Red Riding trilogy), Lena Headey (300, Dredd), Kevin Durand (Real Steel),Jared Harris (Sherlock Holmes 2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 09,06,2014, HD VOD, Home cinema
Synopsis: Clary (Collins) start to have visions. Her mother knows something. She will discover an underworld known to only a few.
Review: This movie is exactly as I have read about it: another Fantasy story for teenagers (following the success of the Twilight saga) in which a regular girl (to which the average viewer can easily identify) discovers that she has powers and meets a group of other young and beautiful teenagers that fight against evil in a world unknown to the other humans. In addition, the characters are very poorly constructed and the love triangle is ridiculous, a feeling not helped by pitiful dialogs ('If you wanted me to remove my shirt you should just have asked me'). The few older actors in the movie make it bearable to a viewer my age, as well as some nice special effects (the flock of crows melting into a demon monster, nice). The morale (bad guys becoming good and vice-versa) and the ending are questionable. To think that a sequel (City of Ashes) is in preparation...
Rating: 3 /10