Father and child sit together smiling while looking at a smart phone.

Want more recommendations for your family?

Sign up for our weekly newsletter for entertainment inspiration

Parents' Guide to

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Teen-friendly fantasy romance doesn't live up to the book.

Movie PG-13 2013 120 minutes
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

See all
age 13+

Based on 14 parent reviews

gardnerrabbitry
gardnerrabbitry Parent of 8 and 15-year-old
October 3, 2022
age 17+

Adults only

Entertaining for adults. Not kid friendly. Glad I watched the series first or I would have been confused. The choice of lead actress was weird. If they went to the work of dying her hair red they could have done something with her massively huge black eyebrows. Regardless, it has violence, LGBTQ propoganda, and drinking.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much consumerism
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
1 person found this helpful.
HoodSiegal
HoodSiegal Parent of 10 and 13-year-old
February 13, 2014
age 15+

Graphic violence and peril

* Spoiler alert * We started watching this movie with our 11 and 13 year olds based on the parent reviews, and it was a mistake. Even I didn't care for the graphic violence, complete with full sound effects. A menacing dog turns into a slithering demon-thing and chases a girl until she blows it up with a fiery explosion, a man is savagely beaten until he fesses up to something. When the scary mouthless guy meets the 2 kids at the cemetery, we finally turned it off. Maybe my kids are sensitive, but I am anticipating nightmares coming soon. CSM's age recommendation is way off here.

This title has:

Too much violence
1 person found this helpful.
See all 14 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Based on Cassandra Clare's fantasy series, THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES centers on Clary Fray (Lily Collins), a New York City teen on the eve of her 16th birthday who can't stop envisioning or drawing a mysterious symbol. On a regular night out with her best friend, Simon (Robert Sheehan), Clary sees a mysterious trio seemingly kill a man. During a second encounter with a good-looking stranger named Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), Clary gets a frantic call from her mother (Lena Headey). After racing home, Clary discovers not only that her mother has been abducted, but that the symbol Clary kept seeing is a rune representative of her mom's former life as Shadowhunter, an ancient group of warriors that protects humanity from demons. As Clary delves into a supernatural world full of demons, werewolves, and vampires, she starts to fall for Jace while taking her place as a fellow Shadowhunter.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (14 ):
Kids say (60 ):

Aside from some humorous zingers and visually appealing set pieces, the first movie based on Clare's book franchise doesn't live up to the expectations of her large fandom. Clare's phenomenally popular novels are jam-packed with character development, plot twists, and thorough supernatural world building. The main problem with the film is that while all of the subplots and secondary characters -- not to mention an intricate cosmology about angels, demons, and other creatures of the light (or darkness) -- make complete sense in a 500-page novel, director Harald Zwart and screenwriter Jessica Postigo have trimmed altogether too much in some ways and not enough in others, creating a movie so convoluted and unresolved that it doesn't work as a stand-alone film.

Lovers of the series will appreciate that secondary characters like Simon and Isabelle (Jemima West) were cast perfectly; Sheehan is brilliant as Clary's nerdy, funny, devoted, and smitten best friend, Simon, while West is exactly the gorgeous, kick-butt warrior Clare describes. And High Warlock of Brooklyn Magnus Bane (model-actor Godfrey Gao) is every bit as magnetic as in the series. But overall, the leads leave much to be desired, and their love story -- so epic in the books -- seems laughably cliche in this adaptation. There's already a second film planned, so the filmmakers will need to drastically streamline the story and give more screen time to supporting players for it to work.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about page-to-screen adaptations. How does The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones compare to the book? What are the main differences? What scenes from the book did you miss?

  • There's a lot of violence in the storytelling here. How do you think the peril compared to other young adult-based films like Twilight or The Hunger Games?

  • There's a theme that "all the stories are true" -- except for zombies. Which supernatural stories or creatures do you wish actually existed?

Movie Details

Inclusion information powered by

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

See all recommended movie lists

Related Topics

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

See how we rate