Sunday, September 10, 2006

Movie Review: Covenant

I had such high hopes for this movie.

Actually, that's not completely true. I fully expected a movie with WB-pretty boys and a 2nd-rate television level script, which is what I got.

What I expected, however, was probably a bit more than I should have hoped for. I expected a cult classic, something to bring back a little of the old black magic to the movies - which has been sorely lacking lately. I'm talking about those movies from back in the day, where the witches wielded powers and made you sit up and beg for more, however cheesy the movie might actually have been. Remember Robin Tunney in "the Craft"? Julian Sands in "Warlock"? Hell, man, how about Michelle Pfieffer, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Jack Nicholson in "The Witches of Eastwick"?

Witches rocked in those flicks; they got respect. Then along came the WB, and "Charmed", and suddenly witches were like the X-men. Only all female, and with big boobs, and PMS'ing every week.

In other words, they sucked.

Then I saw the preview for "The Covenant", and I had hope - because it reminded me of yet another cult classic, one that to this day still defines the 80s generation. "The Lost Boys".

Suddenly vampires weren't guys in dust-covered velvet and silk, pretending that the Victorian age hasn't passed them by several centuries. Vampires were rockers, they were young, they were cool. You didn't have to be British to be a vampire, these vamps...hell. They were AMERICAN.

I saw a little of that, with the previews for the Covenant. Unfortunately, that's the only place you see it.

The storyline is embarassingly predictable; there are no surprises here. None. Once upon a time, the small colonial town of Ipswich was founded by five wealthy families. Then along came the Salem witch hunts, and the last remaining member of one of those families was accused of witchcraft. Several dozen logs of timber and a matchstick later, the Fab Five is down to the Fantastic Four - so they make a Covenant not to display their witchy powers for the world to see. Plus, using the mojo sucks up all your life energy, so it's all for the best.

Fast forward to the present, and the four families are still large and in charge. In Ipswich, which hasn't changed much to my reckoning, but hey - big fish, small pond. One of the Sons of Ipswich (I didn't make this up) is about to turn 18 and gain his full witchy powers...but along comes a spider, who sat down beside her...you get the picture.

The 5 male leads are all typical WB-style clones, which almost makes them generic; at various points it was hard to tell who was who. And I swear, I think the barn the final battle is fought in is Clark's barn from Smallville.

So that leaves the witchy powers, and the special effects crew. Who didn't disappoint. At least...not for the first half of the movie. I couldn't help but wonder if the writer quit, so the director just said "hey, let's keep doing more of the same and hope no one noticed we stopped having original ideas!"

The climatic battle between the main two figures is...anticlimatic. You know exactly how it'll turn out, before it actually starts. I wanted Merlin vs. Nimue, Gandalf vs. Sauramon. I wanted to see an epic battle between two witches changing reality back and forth, conjuring things, calling up the fires of hell and lightning from the heavens.

Instead we got a fight between two telekinetics. Hence the X-men reference. I mean, the magic ball looked good...a few times. Once you realize it's all they're going to do, it becomes a poorly done Shaolin Soccer match. On a positive side, if they ever make a live action Dragonball Z in Hollywood they can use this as a template.

This movie had potential, it really did. It started out so well, I would really like to know if something changed mid-way through making it. In the end, we got stuck with a drawn-out WB movie that might actually work okay as a television series.

The Trickster gives this one a reluctant 3 out of 5 bananas, if only because I did at least feel entertained.

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