The highly anticipated flick Mortal Instruments finally hit theaters. The first film in a six-book saga by Cassandra Clare and starring Lily Collins — one of my current fashion favorites–as Clary a girl who has to enter another world after her mother is abducted and is forced to save her. Over the course of the movie, she finds out she is a shadowhunter–whatever that is–and not everything is what it seems in New York City. Along with Collins is Jamie Campbell Bower, Kevin Zegers and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

Wait, why is he here? He can do so much better!

Having lived though the idiotic Twilight saga craze, I see some similarities. I am personally tired of the whole lets make fantasy/romance –with a little bit of action thrown in with the use of random demons–teen fiction into movies trend. Not everything written is meant to be a movie (just like how Dr.Suess’s the Lorax film was not meant to exist). If I manage to write some lame fiction novel about something fantastical that shoehorns love in, the fact that only tweens and mom’s in their forties like it is a sign from Jesus Christ– or whatever higher power you believe in–that this movie is not supposed to exist. Sometimes, you get good ones like Harry Potter and J. R. R. Tolkien‘s Lord of the Rings (I will not put The Hobbit here for obvious reasons. I was promised a dragon and all I got was dragon eyeball). Then, you get Twilight. Hopefully, Mortal instruments will do better than its predecessor in terms of plot and–yeah, I’m going there– actual acting.

Shield your eyes! It burns!

The critics weighed in and here is what they had to say about it:

“Though it has flashes of promise, Bones traces the footsteps of its fantasy film predecessors too closely to blaze anything close to an original narrative,” states Scott Bowles of USA Today.

“The action flick is overly long, complicated and, even by teen romance standards, cringe-worthy in its cheesiness,” notes The Washington Post‘s Stephanie Merry.

“[The filmmakers] throw in everything from witches and vampires and demons to gay warlocks, mini-skirted monster hunters and werewolf bikers, but this silly epic never goes anywhere remotely interesting,” The Wrap‘s Alonso Duralde remarks.

And my favorite:

“The fact that there is already at least one sequel planned feels more like a threat than a treat,” writes Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times.

…and make you wish you had died in the aftermath…