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Critics Consensus: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones borrows ingredients from seemingly every fantasy franchise of the last 30 years -- but can't seem to figure out what to do with them.
Critic Consensus: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones borrows ingredients from seemingly every fantasy franchise of the last 30 years -- but can't seem to figure out what to do with them.
All Critics (123) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (16) | Rotten (107) | DVD (1)
Every fantasy creature except zombies get a workout in this overstuffed spectacle about a teenage girl who discovers she has angelic blood in her veins.
"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" plays like a "Scary Movie" parody.
This desperate Twilight wannabe hits more than its own share of clunky notes.
Every moviegoer will have his own breaking point, when "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" surpasses the mundane and enters the ridiculous.
"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" will make you yearn for more "Twilight" movies.
Hollywood has more than enough high-caliber young adult lit to mine. Filmmakers should tap into richer human stories. We mere mortals would dearly appreciate it.
Outlandishly clichéd and cockeyed, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones is meshed together with all the conviction of preparing homemade goulash but without a comprehensive taste for escapist originality.
They spend less than five minutes in the City of Bones. Will make you feel bad about your ab routine.
Lily Collins is a talented, beautiful young actress, but even she couldn't save this. And sadly, there are more to come.
The actors wholeheartedly take on their roles, treating the material with the respect devotees expect.
The amount of scene-setting may disappoint those familiar with the story and looking for more, but this is an interesting world and story to explore.
Still they come, trying to fill that Harry Potter/Twilight-shaped gap. This adaptation of Cassandra Clare's young adult series-launcher is an unashamedly derivative market filler.
I like science fiction, so I enjoyed most of the story. This movie does suffer from an un-understandable story line at times, and it is not that unique, but it is fun when Clary finds out what she is.
Super Reviewer
First of all, I haven't read the books, so I couldn't say if this is a good adaptation or not. Judging by the comments of those who have, I am going to say probably not. I did manage to sit through the whole thing, but it wore it's welcome out by a good forty minutes. Cast are fine, story had potential, but was silly. Then again it's not a favourite genre of mine to start with. I have seen the Twilight movies and wasn't impressed past the first two. This just seemed cliched past those. Cheesy as all hell, but not romantic enough to get away with it. Really am getting fed up with these "fantasy" movies and books.
I happen to be a fan and own this series of books so I was a bit iffy on seeing the movie. As usual the movie doesn't play out as the book does but as it goes, that's normal. I think those who haven't read the book might not actually get everything that is happening and might be a bit confused and probably won't like it as much as those who have. It's always hard when a book or a series is being turned into movies because you just don't want to be disappointed. I was iffy about the actors and the director but in the end I actually really enjoyed it. I thought all of the actors did a great job and I only found one or two scenes to be a bit cheesy. But some cheese is to be expected in films like these. I hope the rest of the books get a chance to see the big screen. I would really like to see how the rest of the films turn out.
Great action but the acting isn't really on an "immortal" level, if you know what I mean. (I really don't know how Jonathan Rhys Meyers will be able to live with himself.) The story is difficult to follow, frankly, but the faults are made up for in mindless adventure fun.
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