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There are only a few good Shadowhunters left, apparently. In fact, the City of Bones is a catacomb filled with the skeletons of their departed. But that won't be on the final exam, since the movie spends only a few minutes there.

Clary finds herself allied with Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), a pouty blond pretty-boy Shadowhunter who makes her all tingly. That's problematic, since whenever the battling stops so the potential couple can flirt, the dialogue descends from the silly to the downright mortifying. One make-out session actually includes a Demi Lovato love ballad.

Jace and his cohorts live in an invisible Hogwarts-like refuge — impregnable, of course, but only until it isn't. Among the Evil Ones who might come knocking is archvillain Valentine, played by Jonathan Rhys Myers, who hasn't looked so much like David Bowie since he played a Bowie-like rocker in Velvet Goldmine.

Valentine has a thing about blood that's part Satanism, part Nazi eugenics. But to make his sanguinary cocktail, he needs a Grail-like cup that Jocelyn has hidden. Clary, as you will have suspected by now, just might know where it is.

Director Harold Zwart, who did that Karate Kid remake with Will Smith's son, handles this nonsense professionally: The art direction is stylish, the editing dynamic and the special effects respectable. There are even a handful of witty moments. If only Zwart could have handled the mushy stuff without words, City of Bones might have escaped being laughable. If only.

Aside from the giggles induced by the romance-novel bits, the movie's principal hazard is exhaustion. There are too many characters, and too many of them spend too much time morphing into something else. Five more like this? That would be demonic.