The latest in a growing list of young-adult fantasy literature adaptations, The Mortal Instruments aims at the same audience as previous literary adaptations Harry Potter, the Twilight saga and The Hunger Games.
Located in the heart of New York City and invisible to "mundanes" (ordinary humans), Downworld is filled with battling angels, demons, warlocks, vampires and werewolves. If you're not familiar with Cassandra Clare's popular novels, you'll be thankful for the extensive scene-setting as the alliances, agendas and jargon take some getting your head around.
Lily Collins (Mirror, Mirror) is well-cast as brave, smart young heroine Clary, managing to convince in both the action and fraught romantic scenes. Clary is thrown headfirst into Downworld when she begins seeing leather-clad and tattooed Goths invisible to everyone else. Then her mother Jocelyn (Headey) is kidnapped from their home.
What Clary's mum should have told her is she's from a long line of Shadow Hunters. A dying race, the Shadow Hunters are half-human, half-angel and their role is to hunt and kill demons. It's Jocelyn who holds the key to their survival, a Mortal Cup which has the power to create new demon-slayers, and she knows where it's hidden. Clary must find her mum and the cup before it falls into the hands of Valentine (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a Shadow Hunter gone bad.
There are same pretty grotesque and disturbing demons on show, although the werewolves don't morph into the live action as seamlessly as the demons or vampires, and a portal to another dimension looks like it's been borrowed from Stargate.
