I can wrap The Covenant up for you in one simple sentence: it’s a movie only a teenage girl could love. The story, characters, action sequences – anything that might make the movie worth watching – have all been whittled away to make room for painfully cheesy heart-throb dialogue and barely-clad twenty-somethings strutting around pretending to be teenagers. There’s plenty in this sloppy little supernatural flick to bore anyone else to tears, but slap-happy teens obsessed with mind numbing shows like "One Tree Hill" may very well herald this as the best movie of the year.
Harry Potter meets The Craft in the style of “The OC”, The Covenant tells the story of four boys who have received “The Power”. No one knows where The Power came from. Thank goodness for that as I don’t think I could have endured the extra ten minutes they would have spent explaining it. It is always passed along family lines, from father to the eldest son (why are mystic ancient powers always so misogynistic?) and begins to manifest itself when they turn 13. This Power doesn’t fully mature until they “ascend” on their 18th birthday, an experience that looks identical to what happens when one immortal kills another in Highlander.
Besides gracing the teenage boys with the bodies of Chippendale dancers, The Power grants them the ability to do anything they want, which usually manifests itself in the form of lifting women’s skirts or hurling beer kegs at each other. However, like the dark side of the force, the power has an addicting seductive side. Using it makes you want to do even more, but each usage causes damage to the user’s body, eventually leading to premature death. There’s some business in there about the families and witch hunts in the 1600s, a covenant and some Book of Damnation too. Better exploration of those aspects could have made the movie more interesting but would have required the audience to actually think. Heaven forbid.
Caleb (Steven Strait) is the oldest and most responsible of the four and the most conscientious about using The Power. He and the others attend a private academy where the students spend more time partying than studying. Incredibly enough, all four boys are members of the swim team giving them ample opportunity to wander around in their speedos. The school year takes a twist when two new transfer students arrive on campus. One is the lovely Sarah (Laura Ramsey) who steals Caleb’s heart. The other is Chase (Sebastian Stan), yet another swimmer with The Power. The boys discover Chase is a long lost descendant of a line they thought had died during the witch hunts. He has arrived with a hunger for more, looking to steal Caleb’s share of The Power.
I’d like to believe that some of the actors have a genuine talent for their craft, but they’ll never have a chance to show it until they stop taking roles where they’re cast mainly for their physique. The toughest part of Ramsey’s role was not showing too much during a completely irrelevant shower scene (gotta keep that PG-13 rating), and the major requirements for the five guys is that they can look good in swimwear while hurling imaginary spheres of The Power at each other. During the final “climactic” battle sequence between Caleb and Chase, all they have to do is grit their teeth and wave their arms around in the hopes that the special effects somehow make it look less silly. Unfortunately that doesn’t happen and the whole thing comes off looking like a reject from a Mortal Kombat movie.
As the movie neared what I prayed were the credits, it had one last bomb to drop: an open ending that promises not just a sequel, but a franchise of films. Given the financial success of other teen-dream slosh like John Tucker Must Die and She’s The Man, there’s no question that if this one does as well there’s bound to be more on the way. At least if they carry this into the guys’ college years, the actors might be closer to the right age for their characters.
