"How four underwear models got their DBZ on. And on. And on." - a review of The Covenant by [Mister Saint].


WC Monthly


Disclaimer: Opinions approaching. Unlike some movie reviewers, I choose to simply state my opinion of what I have seen without employing a great deal of professionalism. I believe it to be totally unnecessary to toot the horn of movie stars who are already paid far too much for what they do, and this movie is a perfect example.

Synopsis: Four descendants of a line of American witches in the New England area attend the same college. When a fifth, outcast family line's sole heir appears and begins interfering with their lives, they must fight back against his overhwhelming power.



Review

Summary: A bubbling crockpot of mediocrity. It's like a teen-drama steak, only without the steak. 

Score: 3 out of 10 on the Golden Weasel Scale

Acting: 4 (thanks entirely to the villain)
Film editing: 1
Plotline: 2
Dialogue: 1
Special Effects: 8
Sound and Music: 3
Character Development: 2
Stuntwork/Fight Scenes (if applicable) : 3


This movie is exactly what X-men would have been without Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellan, and directed by whoever it is that directs male models in TV commercials; a misguided tale populated by hard-bodied actors and actresses with little recognition and even less apparent acting ability. This movie suffers badly from the lack of a 'names' in the cast, and could really have used a veteran actor/actress to supply some stage presence.

It begins solidly enough, with a fun (if disgustingly unrealistic) high-speed chase through a forest, at night, in fog, as a narrative hook. You'd think someone might hit a tree, but I'll get to the skills of these witch men (no one says warlock anymore) later. The scene does a great deal to display the infinite power of these four man-boys (whom the story suggests have not yet turned eighteen), as they managed to teleport their SUV into another location to dodge cops.

Smarmy teen drama lies thick upon this movie like the congealed glaze on a sun-baked, fly-eaten doughnut. The primary love interest of the movie, made obvious by her bright blonde hair and inexpiclable magnetic attraction to the 'leader' of the witch boys, is as hopelessly typecast as the rest of the movie. She swiftly progresses from harmless flirting to true, unbridled love for the main character without any particular amount of explanation. This is apparently attributed to raw, animal magnetism, though it is not clearly stated as such. She becomes, as you might expect, the damsel in distress before the movie is over, and never displays a single trait that has not been displayed by other actresses in similar movies. She does have the obligatory shower scene, but by now are we not all desensitized to the 'scared in the shower' bit?



Where Dragonball Z fits into this movie

For those of you who don't know, Dragonball Z is an episodic 80s type anime that received a great deal of success over its unbelievably long run. It is typical in most 'young adult' anime aspects. Moving on.

The villain of the movie has moments where I actually thought 'now that's what makes a great villain'. As something of a student of that particular subject, I found exceptional distaste as the rest of his performance made those moments fade into a homoerotic sea of tired bad-guy speak and posturing. He epitomizes the daytime teen drama bad guy, the kind who steals girlfriends and causes breakups and such. Like the other four witches, he is filthy rich, affluent, and ripped to the bone. He's also power-hungry (who isn't) and uses that as his entire motivation to be a villain. He is involved in some of the better special effects moments in the movie, including using his power to slowly shatter a windshield into the face of the 'leader' guy. However, his quoting of 'little miss muffet' and trying to look badassed while doing it, in addition to actually saying "oooh... witchy!" totally ruined his dark persona. While supposedly more powerful than any of the others - in fact, all of them combined - he insists on waiting to fight the leader until he is strong enough to win. (Dragonball Z reference 1).



The other three witches, with the exception of the 'rebel' one, are essentially a collection of prick Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With the exception of the leader they have miniscule parts in the story, and in my view should not have been even written into the script, as they distract from the storyline whenever they *do* show up. They seem only there to spout used-up lines and show off their six-packs. They have power, but not nearly as much as their leader, leaving them as fodder and spectators against the bad guy. (DBZ reference 2).

The plot wanders aimlessly from point to point, seemingly more interested in the leader's relationship with his token blonde love interest. Gradually the bad guy reveals himself to be bad, taking his sweet time to do so and then doing the unnecessary bad guy things we have so often seen; attacking innocents, threatening, posturing, bad guy laughing, and all without mussing his perfect haircut. 'Weird' occurences happen several times over the course of the movie, each one resulting in the same 'sweaty in bed, waking up from a bad dream' reaction. Very little actual history is supplied for the characters, much of it occuring during a five minute segment that takes place in some secret witch chamber (remarkably like the War Room of X-men fame, and its ilk). It sets an interesting mood, that is, until the girlfriend interrupts by calling on the leader's cell phone.

Before long the 'love interest' predictably becomes the target of bad guy's wrath, resulting in a final showdown between him and the leader in a barn.



MINOR SPOILER WARNING

The fight between Caleb (leader) and Chase (bad guy) is an interesting premise, seeing the two use their witch craft (presumably, anyway) to throw each other through wooden beams and piles of refuse. I had no idea witches were telekinetics, too. Chase's power is constantly hyped as several times greater than Caleb's, and the fight is a squash for the most part. Oddly enough, the two begin throwing 'fireballs' at each other. This is where the special effects sucked their suckiest, making a mockery of the awesome truck scene and windshield scene, as the fireballs look more like burbling balls of mucus than anything else. Presumably they are psychokinetic in nature. More throwing into things ensues.

It is at this point that Caleb 'ascends' as he turns 18, growing in power enough to compete on nearly equal level with Chase. The fight drags on and on, with more goo-balls than a 70s adult movie, until Caleb's father miles away wills him his power, and he grows stronger than Chase to defeat him and save the girl. Between attacks both parties mock and posture at each, taking great time between exchanges. (DBZ references 3-7) The ending is a vague "I guess we'll never know" ending, which leads to the best part of the movie. Knowing it was time to leave.



Quirks:

Caleb's 2005 Ford Mustang occasionally switches from hard top to convertible between scenes. Small detail, eh?

All of the witches possess awesome ninja skills, too, including a load of flips and super-leaps.

Why in hell do all these megalomaniacal types refrain from killing off good guys until they are strong enough to win? I'll tell you why. It's the only way to explain how the good guys could possibly win.

The characters are presumably not yet eighteen. They do, however, all attend college, go to bars, and apparently have full driver's licenses in addition to buttloads of money.

While much mention is made of how their 'power' in use causes aging, none of the characters visibly age despite constant use of it during the movie.



Closing Thoughts:

This movie felt like a straight-to-video flick from start to finish. With an unspectacular sound track, wooden acting, plenty of unnecessary flesh baring, a weak and overused storyline, poor characterization, failure to properly explore plot points, and choppy fight scene editing and camera angles, offset only by a few scenes of killer special effects and a handful of mind blowing moments from the villain, I cannot digest how this movie performed as well as it did at the box office. Oh, right. Hard bodies. Gotcha.

Don't get me wrong. The Covenant isn't so much bad as it is not good. I should have expected as much from the director behind Deep Blue Sea, which is among my most maligned movies of all time.

Oh. Did you know this movie was a horror movie? I actually didn't know that until I read other reviews on it hours after seeing it. I guess I should've known the quality of it, though, when my friend, myself, and my brother were the only people in the theatre on a Friday.



WC Monthly