The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

"In the aftermath of the dominant Twilight and Harry Potter sagas,The Mortal Instruments makes its move to take the YA cinema audience – a demographic that eluded Beautiful Creatures and Stephenie Meyer’s own The Host. But while City of Bones hammers down a confident start, it soon applies that mallet to its own head, beating itself down to a narrative mush of illogic and loose plot threads."

"A ludicrous, borderline-nonsensical supernatural concoction with a slightly redeeming sense of its own silliness."

"A soulless attempt to re-create the Potter magic."

"References to the Harry Potter and Twilight universes pose less of a problem than the increasingly messy action scenes and an overabundance of main characters."

"Does an admirable job of streamlining the lumbering novel it’s adapting... But that still leaves behind an awful lot of tired, familiar elements portrayed in tired, familiar ways."

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