10 Worst Young Adult Novel Movie Adaptations

2. The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones (2013)

Based on the first book of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, Clary Fray (Lily Collins), discovers she is the descendant of a line of Shadowhunters, a secret band of young half-angel warriors locked in an primeval battle to protect the world from demons. First off, Jamie Campbell Bower as Jace, the titular male lover interest, is just all wrong. In the book Jace is cocky and smug. In the film he€™s in full-blown emo mode with no emotion whatsoever, never smiling or anything. The would-be love triangle in the film between the titular characters just wasn€™t done very well; and that€™s a pretty big issue for a YA movie adaptation. A major reason for this was due to the overly melodramatic score; the music constantly swells, gets louder and louder and makes everything come across as cheesy, and not that important. This happens for the slightest of events, including a scene involving a post-it note. The film also has a bunch of action sequences simply mashed together with not enough dialogue to properly develop any of the characters. Granted the book it€™s based on actually doesn't develop its characters all that well either. Though, that seems to be the problem, they tried way too hard to try to included everything from the book into the film. The effects weren't that bad, the cg demons were actually pretty creepy. Overall, the film is boring, over-dramatic, belittling and a true example of a YA movie adaptation gone wrong.