Girls on Film: The confounding problems of fan fiction

The disappointing new film The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was derived from a piece of Harry Potter fan fiction. That's not a good thing.

Mortal Instruments: A copy of a copy of fan fiction.
(Image credit: Facebook.com/TheMortalInstruments)

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is upon us — a maelstrom of every fantasy trope imaginable funneled through 130 minutes of teenage angst.

Lily Collins stars as Clary, a girl sucked into a world of werewolves, vampires, and other underworldly things lurking just out of sight in downtown Manhattan. But surprise, surprise, it turns out that Clary isn't a regular teen; she's a lost Shadowhunter (tasked with keeping a "Downworld" of demons in check) who's been hidden in the human world by her mom. Unfortunately, mom is now missing, and Clary must find her — with the help of sexy, towheaded Shadowhunter Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower).

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Monika Bartyzel

Monika Bartyzel is a freelance writer and creator of Girls on Film, a weekly look at femme-centric film news and concerns, now appearing at TheWeek.com. Her work has been published on sites including The Atlantic, Movies.com, Moviefone, Collider, and the now-defunct Cinematical, where she was a lead writer and assignment editor.