The Covenant

The Covenant(2006) ~One Wisp of Wind

The Covenant can't decide if it wants to be The Craft, Harry Potter, The Lost Boys, or The OC. Make no mistake; I was WAY past an age where I even came close to the target demographic for this one.

The Covenant takes place in a private school in Ipswich, MA (Where the criteria for entry is apparently based entirely on whether you could appear in either a Victoria's Secret or Abercrombie and Fitch catalog.) where we find Caleb (Steven Strait) and his three friends, the "Sons of Ipswich". They rule the school and share a secret. Each is a warlock, the eldest sons of families who founded Ipswich and pass the "powers" onto the first-born son through the ages. The power first shows up at the age of 13 and reaches full strength during the "ascension" at 18. There were originally 5 founding families in Ipswich, but one broke the pact they made with one another, and was banished by the other original witches. (There is a lot of discussion of the power being addictive, and that its overuse ages the wizard prematurely...but...the boys use their powers throughout the movie, and never age. Huh?)

Yeah, you can see it coming from a mile away, a new kid comes to school and things start to go bad...hmmm, where oh where could this young man have come from? Why does he seem to know all about the four boys? Could he....fuck, you know and you didn't sit through this thing, he is a descendent of the fifth family and wants revenge...yawn.

The special effects are passable, the dialogue boring and most of the acting couldn't be stiffer if you starched each actor prior to yelling "action!". The lead (Strait) played Warren Peace in the movie Sky High (which I loved) and he is fine, and beautiful, but he ain't got nothing to work with.

Speaking of beautiful, if you wonder why so many kids have body-image issues, you could just watch this movie. The men are all buff (and swimmers, so we get to see them with their shirts off often) and the girls are all rail-thin, but somehow manage to retain their large breasts without eating anything. (Their boobs must be magic too.) The girls, of course, walk around their dorm rooms in nothing but panties and belly-shirts as though the script were written by the fantasies of men. I remember some good-looking people from high-school, but they would feel badly about themselves after watching this thing.

I will use a food metaphor in this post too, perhaps I will see if I can use 'em in a string of reviews...(then again, I may get bored with them after this.)

The definition of empty calories is a food or drink that provides no nutritional value while providing calories. The upside of empty calories is that they usually taste great, like items containing sugar. Sugar makes your coffee taste better, cocoa powder becomes a candy bar with sugar, etc. You know you aren't doing your body any favors by eating items with sugar in them, but damn they taste good...a guilty pleasure.

The Covenant doesn't even elevate itself to a proper guilty pleasure. It is like pouring a sugar packet in your mouth. Doesn't taste bad, doesn't make you gag, but it doesn't do anything for you, it's boring. It is the very epitome of an empty calorie, without the pleasure...