Review“It's Kate, Chase put a spell on her... creaturistic... spiders.” – CalebFor our second Renny Harlin movie in the current tour de Finland, I choose The Covenant and paid the price for the decision. On the extras, someone or other, maybe the caterer, could tell me that 485 special effects went into the making of the movie. That’s about all she wrote; there’s certainly lots of sizzle with this one, but they forgot the steak completely. The problem is that this movie is masterfully shot, but lacks a decent plot or anything approaching acting chops. A bland, pretentious outing ensues, trying vainly to be The Lost Boys of the current decade, there’s a number of shots lifted off Joel Schumacher’s far superior 1987 movie. Four young 90210 witches – shouldn’t that be warlocks? – are doing the covenant thing in Montreal … oops, New England. The covenant was brought about by various witch-trials and what not in Salem et al and, as exposed by the opening credits using book montages etc, it involves not letting anyone into the fact that people are witches. That’s about how deep this movie is going to get, so you can put away an “Idiot’s Guide to Witchcraft”. One of our four international bright young things is within days of ascending or some such – getting more powerful, for those of us not overly interested – and for Caleb this is where his problems really start happening. Besides hooking up with a cute chick, he is the target for a rogue witch element, which, surprise surprise, turns out to be the descendant of the fifth witchy family in the town of Ipswich. Teen angst, jealousy, and a battle for power ensue. Think of the offspring of a dude’s version of The Craft artificially inseminated by Harry Potter, and you’re good to go. Harlin sure had some spooky settings going down, amps up the gloom, and adds rain and mist to further get his feeling and atmosphere happening. The scenes involving deserted college hallways and stairwells are well conceived and well used. Sarah’s night-time shower had all the hallmarks of being a classic of the sudden stalk and surprise shock scene. Harlin builds it nicely but then simply doesn’t have anywhere to go with the substandard screenplay not trying to play for keeps, or in fact involving anything other than sudden shocks. The rest of the film labours its way through standard horror-lite high-jinks before mercifully finishing in an effects-laden resolution which doesn’t pay off the suffering audience. If I wanted to see some wire fu then I would have dialled into a Jackie Chan flick instead. Harlin is much too Harlin in this movie, as he tries to cover up a threadbare and idea-free script. There’s simply too much crane-cam and steady-cam in use, which on occasion does nothing for the scene he’s trying to make happen. Did enjoy his quick scattergun cutting in scenes, and the interesting angles he took to cover some heavy dialogue in places. What the movie tries to ladle onto our plates is some sort of mystery about who the rogue magic element might be. A couple of candidates are presented, but most readers would have identified the villain of the piece within five minutes, and won’t be buying the substandard reasoning behind the character’s actions. Besides our protagonists, the rest of the cast simply exist as plot devices with nothing in the way of development extended to anyone. Scare elements are restricted to a few sudden shocks, a whole lot of CGI spiders, and the odd moment of unease for the sub-teens. Nowhere in this movie are any attempts made at really ringing in tension; Harlin isn’t that sort of director and is possibly not the best choice for a horror flick. There are some reasonable effects used and I was happy enough in places with them. The car disintegrating and then forming again after running into a truck was pretty effective and had me grinning. The barroom scene where the dudes are discussing what colour knickers some chick is wearing was a good light moment for all involved. And various people and vehicles jumping off cliffs was cool, and might be effective for the post Scream crowd, unversed as they are in The Lost Boys. The one thing the scriptwriters, loosely termed, did get right was the whole magic thing, and an interesting take on that. Our witches might be serious Wicca dudes, but the problem with magic is that it’s seductive and ages the wielder through use. Not that this of course overly concerns the writers when they kind of want to not harp on about that point. One of those use-and-lose plot devices that badly conceived scripts throw up. You might be noting that I’m simply ticking off points in this review, and you are right. I was quite frankly not that interested after the party that features strongly in the first few scenes. I didn’t give a toss about any of the characters, and was wondering if I could simply jump a few scenes without overly missing much in plot development. To be brutally honest I could have watched the opening scene, a couple in the middle, and the final scene without losing too much in the way of plot knowledge. You really have to wonder what Harlin was thinking when he signed on for this project, probably adding another Porsche to the collection or something. Acting was of the “gee we’re unknown ergo no one is going to give a toss about a bad performance” type. Steven Strait (Caleb Danvers) managed to come off as angst-ridden throughout and possibly has a future as a member of a boy band. Laura Ramsey (Sarah Wenham) was cute, and since her role was simply a plot device, managed to get through the movie with no lasting damage done. Sebastian Stan (Chase Collins) overacted and laid on the ham like Christmas was going out of style. The rest of the cast managed to make geese of themselves, but given the crap character development and pure cheddar lines they had to say I’m not going to be overly critical. If the writers don’t care, then why should the actors? It’s girl and gay guy night out on this one; plenty of dudes showing that their acting abilities come from mucho gym work and nothing like acting school. So dig on in there, you deserve a win end of day. Guys get a butt shot, some chicks in various sleeping outfits, and nothing else. Guess this was aimed at the teen chick market that can happily go Paris Hilton on us, and inform anyone reading websites which of the characters they would bonk. Makes a change from Johnny Depp, I guess. Tomandandy threw in a violin and piano influenced score that was a tad too dramatic for the movie I was watching. We do however get plenty of rock, techno, and pop numbers to fill in the blanks. "More Human Than Human" by White Zombie, and “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts were standouts. If you are a teenage chick then this is the film for you. Plenty to perv on, and not much of a script to distract from the view. I found very little of interest besides noting the obvious places where scenes from The Lost Boys were recreated. The movie doesn’t drag in any way, but it doesn’t overly interest either. Sort of an extended music clip with about the same attempt at creating a working story line. The Covenant made $37,229,745 worldwide, with the North American market bringing in a low $23,380,495. Australian distributor Sony took a hit with the movie grossing a low $853,913 and basically being DOA at the box office. Not even going to give any sort of recommendation on this movie, as it simply has nothing to say but spends lots of time in not doing so, eating up the budget in special effects. A gimmicky movie that lacks any sort of soul or vibe, the horror genre is certainly seeing the end of days if this is the best the studios can crank out. I’ll make a covenant with you, let’s never ever mention this movie again.
ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ... Hogwarts moves to New England, and loses class.
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