Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

The Covenant (2006)

Director: Renny Harlin

Average user rating
51 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Screen Gems supremo Clint Culpepper had clear aspirations for this teen horror movie: ‘I wanted to make a “Lost Boys” for this generation.’ As directed by Renny Harlin, from a lame script by repeat offender J S Cardone (‘The Forsaken’), this fulfils the brief perfectly. A tale of modern-day warlocks, it is every bit as dumb, flashy and loud as Joel Schumacher’s 1987 vampire movie.

Directly descended from the families who colonised New England in the late seventeenth century, the buff-bodied ‘Sons of Ipswich’ possess supernatural powers that will increase when they reach their eighteenth birthday. Caleb Danvers (Steven Strait) will be the first of the four to ‘ascend’. But first he must make out with poor scholarship girl Sarah Wenham (Laura Ramsey); avoid his decrepit father’s fate, by resisting the temptation to use his addictive but ageing powers; and confront his slightly fey nemesis, power-hungry ‘darkling’ Chase Collins (Sebastian Stan).

Flying scenes, frat-boy face-offs and pyrotechnic punch-ups are punctuated by excruciating expository dialogue, while a nasty whiff of homophobia sits uneasily with the many lingering shots of naked male torsos.

Author: Nigel Floyd 2006-12-05 11:24:30

Time Out London Issue 1894: December 6-13 2006

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

User reviews of this film

51 comments: page 1 of 4
1 2 3 4

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


The Covenant

Watch http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/thecovenant/

Cast & crew

Director: Renny Harlin

Producer: Tom Rosenberg, Gary Lucchesi

Cast: Steven Strait, Sebstian Stan, Laura Ramsey, Taylor Kitsch, Toby Hemingway, Jessica Lucas, Chace Crawford, Wendy Crewson full cast

Genre(s): Action/Adventure, Horror, Thrillers

Duration: 97 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.