The Covenant

Review by Jason Donner

Take four rotten privileged pretty boys who look like they belong in an ad for Hot Topic or The Gap and then give them all the powers in the universe. What do you have besides a nauseating feeling of complete dread and shame for the entire human race? You've got The Covenant, a boring and ridiculous supernatural teenie bopper thriller.

Aren't half-assed ideas like this the reason The WB isn't around anymore?

That's right, children, it's a cautionary tale of drug use disguised as a story about he-witches... or are they called manwiches? In any case, the parallel will strike you right in the face if you have a brain in your head. Of course, if you have a brain in your head, you're not in this movie's target audience.

There's no other way to say it, The Covenant is stupid. A stupid, ridiculous, boring, homoerotic mess of a teenie bopper movie. I don't think there's any possible way that this movie could have been more bungled from the writing to the directing to the acting to the execution... nothing goes right and it's very noticeable from start to finish.

First of all, there's the story... like a fish out of water, it is a flopping, desperate, pathetic thing gasping for air while slowly expiring the entire time. It's painful to watch a story which, in more capable hands, might have actually amounted to something interesting. Here, it's the stuff of cancelled TV series and pilots that were never picked up.

The writing in this movie is atrocious as well. I swear to Christ, one of these little J Crew rejects actually spouts lines like, "Harry Potter can kiss my ass!" and "I'm going to make you my wee-otch!"

The actors? Well, they weren't hired for talent, that's for sure. As a matter of fact, besides looking at the camera, scowling, and acting angsty... there's nothing much there. These little underwear models don't have a spark of charisma between the four of them. Five, if you count the pussy villain who is about as scary as a teddy bear holding a daisy. Terrible, terrible casting.

And what's worse than terrible casting? Let's try terrible directing! How Renny Harlin has gone from genuine thrillers like Deep Blue Sea to crap like this is beyond me, but here it's like he's not even trying, violating such basic rules as crossing the line of action between shots! For the sake of Pete whoever that is, I learned that years ago in a Journalism course and it was something that was pounded into our heads over and over again. Why can't a so-called accomplished director follow that simple rule and shoot action scenes that don't make you scratch your head wondering why the car is suddenly going in the opposite direction it was going in.

If that's not bad enough, if you were holding out hope that this movie would at least be a little scary, I'm afraid I have to dash it all right now. It's not. Not in the least bit. In fact, this is one of those movies that thinks that making everything so dark you can hardly see it is a sign of atmosphere. It's not! I spent a good time squinting trying to make out what was going on before I just gave up and stopped caring.

The Covenant is an example of Hollywood without any original ideas. The story is convoluted, predictable, and humdrum with skinny white kids throwing magical balls at each other like they're on Dragonball Z or something. There's no excuse for a movie like this. No excuse at all. Everyone involved in it should have their pets slaughtered.