Story

Themes

Supernatural beings and powers

Violence

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has intense sequences of fantasy action violence, which is sometimes brutal and shows characters using swords, knives and spears. The movie also shows torture, deaths and some blood and gore. For example:

• In a nightclub two men and a woman wear gothic clothing and black leather face masks. They have tattoos covering their arms and necks. A young man approaches the young woman. She is wearing a metal bracelet in the shape of a snake, which becomes animated, slithers down her arm and wraps itself around the man’s arm. One of the gothic men approaches and grabs hold of the young man. The other gothic man slashes the young man across the throat with a sword. The dying man writhes on the floor with a thin red bloody line across his throat and the metal snake slithering around his arm.
• Two young men carrying a sword and a spear burst into a woman’s apartment. The door is blown off its hinges and across the room. This throws the woman thrown through the air, and she lands hard on her back. One of the men picks up the woman and throws her against a wall, and she crashes to the floor. The woman gets up and attacks the two men. She tries to stab one with a knife and bashes the other across the head with an iron frying pan. Then she keeps slamming a refrigerator door into the man’s head until she knocks him unconscious. The woman attacks the second man with an iron frying pan, hitting him over the head and escaping into the bathroom. In the end the woman can’t escape, so she drinks the contents of a small bottle and falls unconscious.
• In one scene showing torture, a man is bound to a chair with manacles. Two men question him, taunt him and repeatedly punch him in the face.
• A young man, who seems to be unconscious, is bound in chains and left hanging from a ceiling. The image resembles a crucifixion.
• During an extended fight between several shadowhunters and dozens of vampires, shadowhunters stab vampires through the chest with swords and slash their throats. One shadowhunter uses a vampire gun that has a barbed spike to pierce a vampire’s chest. Towards the end of the battle several werewolves crash through windows and attack the vampires. A vampire’s hand smokes and burns when it is exposed to daylight.
• A young man burns images into his arm with a supernaturally powered blue light.
• A demon kills a werewolf by using its clawed hand to stab the werewolf through the chest.
• A young girl kicks her father through a transport portal that appears as a vertical circle of shimmering water. The man tries to walk back through the portal and his arms come through the water. The young girl touches a device, which causes the water and the man’s arms to freeze.

Sexual references

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones has some low-level sexual references and innuendo. For example:

• A character says, ‘That blond was totally flirting with you’. Another character replies, ‘I’m saving myself for someone else’.
• A demon asks a werewolf if he wants to ‘hump’ his legs and ‘smell my derriere’.
• A man says that a young woman is dressed like a hooker and looks like someone whose phone number should be on a bathroom wall.
• A man wearing short shorts and eye makeup refers to another young man as the ‘hot one with blue eyes’.
• A young woman tells a young man that he should admit to being in love with another man.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

There is some use of substances in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. For example:

• A woman drinks a substance that makes her fall unconscious.
• A man spikes a young man’s drink with blue drops, which causes the man to gasp and gag when he drinks it. It turns out that the young man has been poisoned.
• A young man tells a young woman that they pump hallucinogenic gas into the air at nightclubs.
• A man injects himself with blood, which makes him convulse.

Nudity and sexual activity

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones includes some nudity and sexual activity. For example:

• There are infrequent images of women dressed in tight-fitting and revealing clothing.
• There are shadowy images of a woman changing her clothes behind a screen.
• A young man and woman kiss passionately on the lips.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: iPhones, iMac laptops, brand-name cars and tattoos.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

Ideas to discuss with your children

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is an action fantasy movie, similar to the Twilight Saga movies but not as well done. Like the Twlight Saga movies, it’s based on a series of fantasy novels (by Cassandra Clare), but it has a confusing plot and stereotypical characters.

The movie’s violence, scary characters – including vampires and werewolves – and disturbing scenes make it unsuitable for children under 13 years and some older children. We strongly recommend parental guidance for younger teenagers who might be attracted to the movie by the attractive actors or who are familiar with the books.

These are the main messages from this movie:

• The world stays the same – people change.
• Working as a team makes individual people stronger.
• Families are important and worth fighting for.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include courage as shown by Clary’s mother, Jocelyn, Clary herself, Simon, Jace, Alec and Isabel. All these characters risk their lives to protect others.

This movie could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life issues. For example, Clary’s mother has repeatedly lied to Clary to protect Clary from the forces of evil. Is it justifiable to lie to the people we love if we think it’s in their best interest?