I went to see The Covenant expecting very little and got even less. If you've seen the preview for this film then you know what you're getting in to. A great deal of the advertising for the movie has centered on the fact that it's from the producers of Underworld. This basically means that we're meant to expect a sexy and moody take on a creature from horror mythology (i.e the vampires in Underworld or in the case of The Covenant, witches). You definitely get a taste of that here, but not in any sort of satisfying way.
The film revolves around a quartet of male witches (whom would generally be called warlocks, but the film never refers to them as such), all of whom are basically handsome underwear models. There's the dark and responsible leader man-witch (Steven Strait), the arrogant and moody blond man-witch (Toby Hemingway), the bad boy man-witch who rides a motorcycle (Taylor Kistch) and a thrown-in fourth man-witch with no lines (Chace Crawford). All of these actors are about as unknown as it gets. The biggest role any of them has had is Taylor Kistch who, much to his credit, played a guy joining the mile-high club in the vastly superior Snakes on a Plane. Anyway, the foursome's general routine of impressing teenage girls, riding motorcycles in the rain, going to trendy parties and showering together after high school swim practice is interrupted when an ill-tempered rival man-witch (Sebastian Stain) transfers into their ridiculously high-class prep school. Apparently using witch magic is addictive and takes a massive toll on the body, much like a hardcore drug, so the rival man-witch intends to steal all the power of the four good man witches in the desperate hope of overcoming the repercussions of his addiction to the man-witch lifestyle. Of course the good man-witches are reluctant to give up their superpowers and thus a duel between sexy witch men is staged.
As far as supernatural thrillers go, the premise isn't really all that bad. It leaves plenty of room for action, special effects and O.C.-style teenage angst. The Covenant certainly attempts these angles but comes up short in all categories. The problems with this movie begin with the clumsily crafted dialogue. The film contains such brilliant lines as, "Harry Potter can kiss my ass," and, my personal favorite, "I'm gonna make you my wi-atch." The acting isn't great, but I don't think that Anthony Hopkins could deliver the film's dialogue with a straight face. Perhaps these lines would be amusing if The Covenant was aware just how bad they are, but the film is tragically ignorant of its own camp.
OK. So the acting and writing are second-rate. To some extent this is to be expected in the supernatural thriller genre. I could probably even forgive this film if there were some solid action sequences to back up the failures in scripting and casting. Surprise! There aren't. This is one area where I expected The Covenant to actually deliver a solid cinematic experience. At least Underworld, for all its overwrought atmosphere and direction, had interesting action. Perhaps the most pathetic thing about The Covenant is that its principle man-witch characters have the power to do literally whatever they want. The film offers no limitations to their powers. As far as the audience is concerned, they could turn a Rubik's cube into a machine gun, or make Dick Cheney vomit green pigs with wings (don't get you hopes up, they don't either of these of things). Sadly, the most interesting thing the man-witches ever do is throw transparent orbs of pulsating jelly at each other -- blobs that send them hurtling into conveniently placed wooden boxes. The film goes for an animé style of action in its climactic sequences but once again fails miserably to deliver. It's kind of like a clumsy attempt to mimic the action of the popular animé Dragon Ball Z. You can pretty much see the wires tugging on the man witches trench coats as they float about the film's various set.
In all seriousness, though, horrible writing, bad acting and ill-wrought action aside, this movie still sucks. I've got a soft spot for embarrassingly bad movies, and even I didn't enjoy The Covenant. Don't see it unless you're a boy-hungry school girl with a Wicca fascination. On second thought, just don't see it.
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