The Covenant

We first saw this movie three years ago, under the pretense of watching hot guys be hot in Massachusetts. We knew nothing else about it, except that magic was supposedly involved. Fortunately, we'd forgotten almost everything about it until our most recent screening.



Directed By: Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea)
Starring: Steven Strait and Sebastian Stan
Plot Summary: "Sooo... this is The Craft for boys."

We were immediately haunted by the Ghost of Craptacular Movies Past, in the worst way we could have imagined: The Covenant begins almost exactly the same way as Catwoman did, with the history of the story legend presented as text over mystical imagery. Which is unnecessary, given that there's more than one exposition dump in this movie and the first of which takes no time at all to show up. In the opening scene, new girl Sarah (Laura Ramsey, the female lead, who is so unimportant to the plot that we can't find reasons for her existence in the story) sees the boys coming down the hill and says, "Who are they?" Her roommate answers, "They're the Sons of Ipswich, supposedly descendants of the five families who founded the colony." Oh, really? Did we not just see that two minutes ago in the opening credits?

Observations Made As We Watched:
--"What the crap, we have to READ? Wasn't this a movie about hot guys?"
--"And here goes the 'edgy supernatural thriller' music."
--"How dare they desecrate Joan Jett in this way? HOW DARE THEY?!"
--"Absolutely everything I have ever seen on the subject leads me to believe that boarding school is the s***."
--"Oh GOD, do you remember when we watched Catwoman?!"
--"You know what would make this a lot better? If, when they got caught using magic, they were hanged."
--"It's the cops! You know, Harry Potter doesn't have to deal with this crap."

"Oh, it's the 'we're building an atmosphere' thing."

We admit, there is a shudder-inducing visual or two (involving a spider crawling out of someone's forehead while they sleep). But for the most part, the movie's trying harder to work up the mystery (which isn't really a mystery, since we figure out who the bad guy is from the start) than it is to pull together a story.

This is a problem that many a shoddy revenge movie faces: Revenge, as a motive, is abstract on-screen because that kind of drive is so deep within the revenge-seeker's head. This is especially true in the case of a plot like this one, when the revenge-inspiring actions don't occur on screen, but in the backstory instead, and the revenge-seeker isn't the protagonist we're following. The bad guy, Stanley, wants to wreak vengeance on Caleb, the leader of the Sons of Ipswich, for something that happened between their families a long time ago. I think it speaks to how ineffective this revenge plot is, that we've already forgotten what the transgression was. I think the other families kicked Stanley's family out or something.

The Best Part: There is a 2-minute scene when all the boys are in the school locker room. Everyone is naked, if you're into that.

The Worst Part: The plot. Another potentially-decent concept, poorly executed.

We give it a D-.