'The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones' might reduce plans for the sequel to ashes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 24, 2013

Not only have we seen this all before, but we were probably hoping to not see it again.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 23, 2013

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is such a pathetic mess you end up feeling a little sorry for the poor mite.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 23, 2013

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.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Aug 22, 2013

This is film-making at its most cynical. But none of it actually makes much sense.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 22, 2013

"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" plays like a "Scary Movie" parody.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 22, 2013

This desperate Twilight wannabe hits more than its own share of clunky notes.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2013

This tired mulch of fantasy clichés is hampered by its regressive attitude towards its plucky heroine.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 22, 2013

Every moviegoer will have his own breaking point, when "The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" surpasses the mundane and enters the ridiculous.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 22, 2013

"The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" will make you yearn for more "Twilight" movies.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 22, 2013

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.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 22, 2013

It desperately gathers clichés like a teen fantasy Frankenstein that doesn't realize its secret identity: parody.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 21, 2013

Mortal Instruments manages to occupy 130 minutes of frantic, numbing, activity.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 21, 2013

Everything chugs along briskly and reasonably entertainingly until running off the rails a bit with a wildly overcomplicated finale.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 21, 2013

The action flick is overly long, complicated and, even by teen romance standards, cringe-worthy in its cheesiness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 21, 2013

More than just another watered-down tween franchise wannabe.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Aug 21, 2013

Alas, the titular City of Bones is more of a basement.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 21, 2013

The movie blasts by for a while as an odd and busy slice of highly watchable garbage.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 21, 2013

One of the most disastrous page-to-screen adaptations in memory.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 21, 2013

An almost random collection of sexy-supernatural teen signifiers aimed at squeezing the penultimate dollars out of a declining trend.

Full Review | Aug 21, 2013