The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

A teenager (Lily Collins) learns that she comes from a long line of Shadowhunters, an army of young half-angels waging a secret war against the forces of evil. The first of Cassandra Clare's series of young readers' novels comes to the screen in a form that may please Clare's readers, who have already immersed themselves in her insanely complicated story. For the initiated [[[[uninitiated?]]]], however, it's a muddled bore, standard teenagers-with-awesome-power stuff and a shameless effort to tap into the Twilight phenomenon. Collins is torn between two lovers, Shadowhunter hunk Jamie Campbell Bower and mortal nerd Robert Sheehan, with various other hangers-on making puppy eyes at each other between fights with CGI demons. Jessica Postigo's garbled script betrays [[[right word?]]] her inexperience; Harald Zwart's limp direction doesn't help.