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Okay, I’ll admit it; I wanted to see The Covenant. I knew it was supposed to be terrible and I really wasn’t expecting much. I was looking forward to maybe a few flashy visuals and hopefully a couple of tight abs. Eye Candy. I was also suspecting that The Covenant could be a brilliant execution of camp; it could have been one of those awful films that are just so bad that you have to love them.
Unfortunately for me, my suspicion was wrong. There is absolutely nothing to love about The Covenant. Not even the abs (although they were nice, they just couldn’t make up for the awfulness of the rest of the movie).
The Covenant does have a somewhat fun premise for those of us who love horror and witches and all things dark and scary. Four boys, descendents of four powerful lines of witches, are faced with a fifth descendent, the odd boy out who has been driven mad by abuse of his supernatural power. The oldest of the four must face off against this outsider in order to protect the ones he loves and vanquish the forces of evil, thus restoring balance and order to the universe.
The only name attached to this film that might be recognizable is director Renny Harlin. Harlin has a long list of credits including quite a few recognizable titles: Mindhunters, Driven, Deep Blue Sea, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Die Hard 2 (while it was the worst in the series, it’s still a Die Hard move). Unfortunately for him, the longer he makes movies the worse his movies seem to get. The Covenant is just proof of the trend.
The story combines elements that we’ve seen before and a couple of original twists that could have almost been promising. But they weren’t. The film never takes advantage of any of the things that would have made this if not a good then a fun film. In fact, it is so flawed I’m not sure I’ll be able to cover all of the things wrong with it.
But you can bet I’m going to try.
For starters, let’s discuss the story. An interesting premise is just your start when you’re in the process of creating a film. In fact, an interesting premise happens so early in the development game that it should be a crime for a film to make it to theaters with nothing more than its premise to recommend it. In the case of The Covenant, the store never really goes anywhere. There is no interesting development, no exploration of the film’s intriguing back-story. The pacing is so horrible that three quarters of the way through I was left wondering when something was going to start happening. You know what, I don’t actually think it was a pacing problem. The thing is, there wasn’t anything there to be paced.
Moving past the lack of story, we come to the characters and the actors playing them. As far as character development goes, it’s pretty much right there with the story development in that there is none. We’re told all that we are going to be told about these characters as soon as they are introduced. It never goes any farther than that. The actors themselves, who are these kids? I have no idea. My lack of knowledge, it’s for a good reason. Steven Strait, Laura Ramsey, Sebastian Stan, et al; they’re terrible. Every last one of them. Some of the scenes were so abominably acted that I just wanted to cry. Even if the dialogue had been well written (it wasn’t), the delivery would have killed it. As much as I like abs and scantily clad men, nothing could make up for the dull performances.
I’m also not really sure whom this film was meant to appeal to. I guess adolescent boys? Girls? While it’s apparent that every actor in this film was cast for his or her looks, there are too many males in small bathing suits for this to be a boys’ film and absolutely nothing else to make this a girls’ film. The world of The Covenant is a completely male centric universe, the lead female character is nothing more than a pretty face and a hot body, and the conflict is so firmly wedged between two alpha males that no woman in her right mind would ever give a rat’s backside as to what happens.
Come on boys, we all know what this is about, just whip ‘em out already and have done with it. When all that testosterone is out of your system, then you can come talk to us again. Ramsey is lucky her character spends the climax of the film under an enchantment, it saves her from having to bare witness to the lame, macho, homoerotic chest beating that we’re subjected to.
Oh wait, that’s who this movie was made for: adolescent gay males. Those poor boys.
It does make sense though. The “sons of Ipswich”, as the four young men are flippantly referred to as, does sound like it could be the name of a boy band. They do look like a boy band.
Are they a boy band?
In one rare, brief moment of lucidity and self-awareness, the film even makes a joke of itself to that extent.
In the end, I’m still really not sure what this film was going for. I don’t think it knew what it wanted to be and that’s the crux of the problem. Instead of taking advantage of the things it had going for, all the makings of a successful camp film were there, it just floundered around aimlessly and ended up going nowhere.
Even the visuals were tired and boring.
I can’t get myself worked up about this movie in any way, positive or negative. When I finally hit the stop button on my remote the only feeling I was left with was one of indifference. I didn’t care enough to be mad about wasting my time but there was nothing redeeming about this film either.
So all I can say is: skip it. There’s no reason for anything else.
The DVD is fine. Not much to say about it either. There's some commentary, a few trailers. I think that was about it. Not that you would want to spend any of your time on more extra features with this movie anyway. A case of less is more.
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