The Covenant

Going into seeing "The Covenant," I had little expectations. I had expected this to be a big budget movie, full of action sequences and nothing else. Some parts of me believed it would be terrible, but other parts of me had hope because "Underworld," the producers of "The Covenant," was great. Honestly, I can say that I enjoyed it. There were flaws, but not enough for me to walk out or demand my money back.

In 1692, in the Ipswich Colony of Massachusetts, five families with untold power formed a covenant of silence. One family, lusting for more, was banished and their bloodline disappearing without a trace. Four young students at the elite Spencer Academy who are bound by their sacred ancestry. These boys have all been born with special powers. The powers, however, are addictive; if they use them excessively, they will start to weaken and age. The fifth "Son of Ipswich" has surfaced and has plans to destroy the other four and steal their powers for himself.

The premise had a lot of potential. I must admit it did fulfill its potential since it focused manly on the premise then the action sequences. It was more then just a good vs. evil story; it was a story about battling yourself. I liked how there was an obvious metaphor about drugs ruining your body. This should be used as life lessons for teens of today. Unfortunately, there were zero twists or surprises, which means that everything told in the trailers happened in the movie and just that; nothing more.

For a group of unknown actors, the acting could have been a lot worse. Everyone did their jobs and all made believable teenagers. Steven Strait (Caleb Danvers), Taylor Kitsch (Pogue Parry), Toby Hemingway (Reid Garwin), and Chase Crawford (Tyler Sims) played the four main characters concentrated on. Sebastian Stan (Chase Collins) plays the villain. Laura Ramsey and Jessica Lucas (Sarah Wenham and Kate Tunney), were also believable as two teenage roommates.

Some people might complain about the horrible dialog, especially coming from the character, Chase Collins. I personally enjoy it because it was very campy and comic book like. Lex Luther (Gene Hackman) and the Joker (Jack Nicholson) were like that, yet there is no one complaints. Why should you make a complain about Chase Collins? It looked like Sebastian Chase had fun with the character. Sure it was more comic book then graphic novel, "The Covenant" is based on a graphic novel, but it was still fun nonetheless.

Visually, I felt I was watching "Underworld" without the Lycans and Vampires. The special effects were decent as well. There was nothing new or revolutionary, but for a low budget movie, $20 million- low for today's standard, it was still acceptable. Most blockbuster movies run about five times that amount, and some have even reached up to ten times the amount. A final battle between Chase and Caleb reminded me of a "Street Fighter" battle, which some may complain about, that made me feel very nostalgic. The cast is loaded with eye candy for both the male and the female audience.

While "The Covenant" is placed in the action/horror/thriller genre, it should not be considered a horror. Two scenes involved spiders, which I will not reveal anymore, which would not look out of place in a classic horror movie and I was surprised how well those scenes worked. Unfortunately, other than those couple of scenes, the movie is not scary. Therefore, if you go into "The Covenant" expecting a horror you will be disappointed.

The writing could have used some improvement! They needed to spend a little more time explaining some of the subplots. One example was that the four main heroes kept referencing "darklings." We knew what they look like, but nothing else. In addition to the unexplained subplots, one of the characters, Taylor Sims, was horribly underused. I believe he only had one line in the whole movie. They could have just taken him out of the script since he had no purpose. They even left the ending open for a sequel. If they release a sequel, they should spend more time on the things mentioned above. I would be up for seeing one, though it might be more suited for a television series.

Overall, I enjoyed "The Covenant." It was not one of the better movies, but there certainly have been worse. If you enjoy movies that are part supernatural, part comic book, and part TV movie, you will like this. I could see why there were complaints, but I think those were from people that took it far too seriously. This is not a DVD worthy purchase but when going into the theater on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, to spend your $8.50 or more, you should still consider this.

The idea of the movie was better than the movie itself, I thought. It did have potential, but didn't really embrace it as much as it should have. Basically, it's about four warlocks who are descent from four families from the 17th century who were able to harness the power of witchcraft. But when a fifth one shows up, stronger than all of them and seeking the power of the others, they must stop him before he kills them and everyone they care about. Think Underworld meets Highlander, and that's the basic mood of the movie. It's easy to think of this as an Underworld knock off, but it was actually better than that. The plot is predictable, and drags at times, and there is almost no character development. A lot of interesting subplots are touched upon, but never really explored, and the way they ended it, they obviously want sequels. Check it out, there's some pretty cool action scenes and an interesting story to back it up, but don't count on being blown away.

Basic summary: Ipswitch used to be a community of witches and escaped the Salem witch hunts by forming a covenant of secrecy. The first born males descended from these families have supernatural powers, and must come to terms with the seductive, addictive nature of using those powers.

Well, I usually give movies the benefit of the doubt and start from a 5, going from there:

Production: -1 for very obvious audio out of sync, +1 for nicely done special effects, the darkling actually gave me chills, +0.5 for nice colorization (I like the dull blue), -0.5 for the stupid sound track, +0.5 for the opening sequence -- I'm a sucker for stylish compositing and flashy title design.

Story / Script: +1 for decent main idea, -0.5 for DBZ/Matrix/Street Fighter ripoff/pastiche, -1 for not explaining some plot threads very well (spiders, darkling), -1 for boring, predictable ending, -1 for gratuitous exposition, both as words on the screen and as bland monologuing

Acting / Characterization: -0.5 for bad bad acting, although it gets a little better as the film progresses, -1 for lack of character development, especially among all the females

Other: +1 for gratuitous male and female nudity, which is fun to watch, and +0.5 for no sex scenes, which for this genre are usually done very badly and end up being boring rather than hot, +1 for hitting its target audience, teenage sci-fi/horror/thriller fans, even though this movie is not exclusively any of those genres.

Conclusion: This is not a "film," this is a MOVIE. There's really nothing to analyze, it's just good, (relatively) clean fun. Lots of really attractive actors and actresses. Lots of boys fighting in the style of DBZ and Street Fighter. If you like cute actors and actresses, supernatural special effects, and/or mindlessly fun plots, this movie is for you. If you prefer Oscar-worthy, exquisitely-produced film masterpieces with tons of multi-layered, allegorical plot threads and groundbreaking visualization techniques, you probably won't like this film.

Using my twisted logic, this movie gets a 4/10.

This movie is essentially for teenagers. The cool boys in the school meet the cool girls. The boys have supernatural powers and it's all about being in control and appealing to the opposite sex. The plot itself is fairly shallow and offers no twists or turns.

Unlike the movie "Underworld", this movie moves a little too slow and doesn't have anything interesting to offer other than some occasional special effects and some scantily clad actors. The girls run around in their underwear and the boys walk around in swim trunks.

The special effects and the display of the supernatural powers are very well done, but after awhile they evoke yawns, and not excitement. You can only slam people around so much before it quits adding to the plot. The movie fails at upping the ante. No matter how intense the action should feel, it all just looks like more of the same.

Strangely, the adults in this movie offer forth the worst acting. The younger actors do quite well and it is the story and overall plot which leaves the most to be desired.

The movie isn't bad, it just isn't good either.

When watching the new Renny Harlin flick "The Covenant", one has to ask themselves "Am I at a movie theatre, or did I just turn on the Saturday Night Sci-Fi Channel movie?" Ipswitch, Mass. was founded in the 1600's by five families who fled England because of their mystical pagan powers. The Putman's were thought to have been killed off in during the Salem witch trials. Now, in 2006, the four male descendents of the remaining families are developing their magical powers, with the leader, Caleb Danvers (Steven Strait), reaching the full maturation of his powers on his 18th birthday. The families formed this covenant to keep each other in check, as the powers drain the life force of those using it. The long lost heir of the Putman family comes back into town to take all the powers for himself.

I found three metaphors in the film: puberty (get the powers at 13 years old, with full maturation at 18), drugs (the powers are addicting and slowly kill you) and to a lesser extent homosexuality ("my adoptive father caught me using magic when I was 15, and we kept it quiet"). All three were obvious, yet an attempt was still made to obscure them.

The lore and mythology was presented in an un-convoluted way. It's easy to follow and straightforward. So there's nothing inherently wrong with it. It's just simplistic and derivative, with nothing to really get excited about. You could almost figure it out without having even seen the movie.

Harlin seems to have taken a cue from MTV in making this film, adopting the philosophy of "Laguna Beach" that everyone in your high school just got back from a Teen People photo shoot. He must have cast models, as there isn't a shred of acting talent in the entire young cast. At the end of the film I was wondering if I had seen a film comprised entirely of cut footage and rehearsal shots. I was left with the distinct impression that just off camera was a stagehand holding a stack of cue cards for the cast to read from.

And the camera work was straight out of the late 80's to early 90's music video library. Half of it looked like a schlock Ozzy Osbourne video, the other half resembled Madonna's "Like a Prayer." This kind of film-making is completely unappealing. I understand that the core audience is probably 13-18 year old girls, and they most likely find that sort of film-making wondrous and spellbinding. Unfortunately for Harlin, and myself, 13-18 year old girls aren't the only ones who see films. There's a whole world of intense film-making techniques out there that would have made this film more enjoyable and pleasing to the eye. I know. I've seen it. Many have developed and mastered these techniques. But Harlin, no matter how much of a seasoned veteran he is, is making mistakes and "artistic choices" that reek of rookie director.

Not to mention the end fight scene seemed taken punch for punch from the Saruman/Gandalf fight in "Lord of the Rings" or Harry/Voldemort fight in "Harry Potter". I could go on and on about how this reeks of un-originality: "The Craft" with dudes or "The Lost Boys" with witches.