Face-off Friday: City of Bones

I haven't blogged for ages! Why not? Because it's summer and I've been building tree houses, going on vacation, writing novels, hiking (three times a week, insanely enough) and being pregnant as a whale. A pregnant whale.

I watched City of Bones last weekend, and am going to do FRIDAY FACE-OFF where I compare the movie to the book. Ready? Here is the trailer.

In the movie, the characters were remarkably well-fleshed, satisfyingly authentic and surprisingly human.


The only real let-down was Magnus, the high-warlock who came across more Rocky Horror Picture Show than Scary Powerful Wizard. It wasn't his lack of pants either. He looked good, but when he opened his mouth, I was like, really? Keanu Reeves could do better than this. There was no intensity or power, but hey, one slightly less stellar performance in a cast of quite brilliant isn't something I'll complain about... at least much.

My favorite was probably Jace, the main hottt guy. It wasn't his hotness, but the fact that he got good lines and delivered them. This excites me more than I can express, particularly when the lines came from the actual book! What brilliant director realized that the writer might have good lines that shouldn't be abandoned entirely? It's always a good choice. My favorites:

"In future, Clarissa," he said, "it might be wise to mention that you already have a man in your bed, to avoid such tedious situations."
"You invited him into bed?" Simon demanded, looking shaken.
"Ridiculous, isn't it?" said Jace. "We would never have all fit."

And 

“Is this the part where you start tearing off strips of your shirt to bind my wounds?"
"If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked.”

Good lines. Well-delivered. 

In the book, my favorite characters were Simon and Isabelle. My least favorites were probably Jace and Clare. They seemed to antagonize each other for no apparent reason. In the movie? I got to see that he likes her, is sweet to her, and she likes him. I didn't feel that so much in the book. 

Where are we on the tally? 1 point for the movie for the characters? nil the book? Really? Hm. And usually I prefer books so much better than movie adaptations. Where were we? 

Action:

Well... here's the thing. The book has tons of action, but it also has motivations for all the things that happen while the movie sort of skips that part. So the action in the movie was great, but it sacrificed a lot of the 'why' and would have left me scratching my head if I didn't already know what was going on. 

The worst was the end. That made no sense, but the action sequence was brilliant, as was Jace's sincerity in protecting Clare. So... 

Action --1 pt for the book, 1 pt for the movie

Plot: There was so much missing in the movie. So much and yet they managed to keep what I consider the most essential pieces, and leave out the many extra tangly bits that would have made the movie a mess because it only had two hours. Still, there was no excuse for the end. It made no sense and I saw no reason for them to change it, to change Jace's original identity, just because they couldn't find a Valentine with the right color of hair. 

Doesn't he look evil? He did a great job. All they would have had to do was dye his hair. Anyway...

 In the book, I liked the plot of City of Bones. I thought it was fresh, darkly captivating and based on some of my favorite themes. I like good fighting evil and showing some of the complexity of the whole good vs evil. I appreciated the effort. 

Romance:



They are so cute.

 In the movie, he wasn't one of those jerk guys who are tormented so they can't help but be rude and obnoxious all the time. He liked her. He acted like he liked her, probably because they didn't have time to develop anything else, but I didn't need it. I liked Jace. 

In the book, I didn't. Of course, there's room for their characters to change and grow through the rest of the series, but in City of Bones... nah. 

Anything else? Nothing else I can think of.

So, based on my extremely scientific comparisons, the movie pulls ahead of the book, not by much, but definitely worth seeing. 

Has anyone else seen the movie and loved/hated it? What do you think of Jace? Magnus? Any other characters that you liked better in one version than the other?

Have a great weekend! 

Oh, and Watergirl, My excellent YA paranormal will be launching soon, so get ready for some heavy breathing.