Critical response On the critical response aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 13% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "
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."
Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 33 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
The Telegraph's Robbie Collin gave the film one out of five stars, saying, "This gothic teen fantasy is one of the most disastrous page-to-screen adaptations in memory". Collin added "the plot is an incomprehensible tangle of dead ends and recaps, and afterwards you realise only two things have stuck: the story's countless unsubtle borrowings from very recent pop culture... and a brief aside in which we learn one of the earliest demon-hunters was
Johann Sebastian Bach." Michael Rechtshaffen from
The Hollywood Reporter also gave it a negative review, saying, "Certainly not the first and very unlikely the last studio attempt at launching a
Twilight/
Hunger Games franchise of their very own,
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is a bona fide saga all right—just not in a good way" adding "Despite the overstuffed assortment of vampires, werewolves, warlocks and demons of all shapes and sizes,
The Mortal Instruments seldom feels like anything more than a shameless, soulless knockoff."
New York Daily News also gave it a negative rating of 1 star out of 5; critic Jordan Hoffman wrote, "This one is by far the worst of the
Twilight copies. And when that bunch includes
The Host and
I Am Number Four, that's saying something." Hoffman added, "Despite an avalanche of back story, the film is merely an excuse to hop from one spookily dressed set to another. Alas, the titular City of Bones is more of a basement. Other than a gag about a cache of weapons beneath every church altar, there's hardly a moment of levity or imagination. For a film that is wall-to-wall fantasy, you've seen all of this before, in much better movies." Tom Keogh of
The Seattle Times also gave it a negative review, stating, "
City of Bones is so overwhelmed by CGI effects that it amounts to white noise for the eyes. Far worse is the way director Harald Zwart can't establish a mature tone to support some of the story's genuinely bold and challenging elements, especially a forbidden-love theme that deserves a more serious context". A more average review came from film critic Stephanie Merry of
The Washington Post, who said, "To be fair, there are elements worth celebrating. The film is thankfully less self-serious than the mopey
Twilight films.
The Mortal Instruments revels in its own camp." She added, "But there is plenty of room for improvement. The action flick is overly long, complicated and, even by teen romance standards, cringe-worthy in its cheesiness." David Blaustein from
ABC News also gave the film an average review of two-and-a-half out of five stars, saying, "Director Harald Zwart unsuccessfully tries to compress teen angst, love, passion, unfulfilled dreams and action into an overzealous, over-the-top, never-ending finale which seems about as well planned as throwing rocks and sand into a blender in the hope that if you blend it long enough at high-enough speed, you might wind up with a delicious milkshake." He then added, "
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is not a very good film by any stretch of the imagination. However, it does possess a slick, beautiful, young-adult aesthetic and a supernatural, emotional yet nonsensical love triangle that the film's target demographic goes crazy for." Venetia Falconer of
MTV News gave the film a positive review, with a score of 4 out of 5 stars, posting, "
The Mortal Instruments more than lives up to its hype of 'The New Twilight'. The special effects are impressive, the battle scenes enthralling and there is solid acting from all members of the cast. The film's main strength is that it perfectly hits the right balance between drama and comedy." Cinema audiences responded more positively than critics. Viewers who saw the film on the opening Wednesday, gave an average grade of B+, according to market research firm
CinemaScore.
Box office City of Bones grossed $9.3 million for the three-day weekend in the U.S. and $18.2 million worldwide, debuting in #3 place as the highest ranked new release, although losing out on the top two spots to holdovers from previous weeks (''
Lee Daniels' The Butler and We're the Millers). For the five-day cumulative total, it grossed $14.1 million in the U.S. and $23.2 million worldwide, placing it below estimates of Variety
at $18 million, The Hollywood Reporter
at $15 million, and Sony itself who predicted $15 million. According to The Wrap
, the film "failed to connect" and is on the same course as other misfires Beautiful Creatures and The Host. Forbes
also made comparisons with Beautiful Creatures
and The Host'', and called the five-day weekend gross "a full-blown disaster" as well as "the biggest bomb of the weekend". Executive producer Martin Moszkowicz blamed the weak opening in the United States on "a strongly competitive environment", including competition from ''
You're Next and The World's End, as well as strong holdovers The Butler
and We're the Millers''. Moszkowicz was confident, saying it was still too early to call, with the film still rolling out release in more territories worldwide. It went on to gross $31.2 million in North American and $59.4 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $90.6 million.
The Hollywood Reporter described the film as a "major in-house flop" and contributing to studio Constantin's losses for the 2013 year.
Accolades The Mortal Instruments won four
Canadian Screen Awards: Achievement in Make-Up, Achievement in Overall Sound, Achievement in Sound Editing and Achievement in Visual Effects. It was also nominated for Achievement in Costume Design and Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design. The film was nominated at the
2014 Teen Choice Awards for
Choice Movie: Action, Choice Movie: Actor Action, and Choice Movie: Actress Action, but lost to
Divergent in all categories. ==Sequel==