The Covenant

Director: Renny Harlin

Cast: Steven Strait, Taylor Kitsch, Chace Crawford, Toby Hemingway, Sebastian Stan

Running time: 97 minutes

Classification: 13 V

Rating: 5/10

The coolest part of this movie happens close to the beginning when the four kids, known as the sons of Ipswitch, are about to launch their SUV over a cliff edge. The teenage driver yells "eat your heart out, Harry Potter" and the car disappears into the mist.

And that about sums the film up. It has some cool ideas, but they kind of disappear into the distance.

The four teenagers are descended from four of the founding families of Ipswitch, where the American witch trials really began.

According to this story the accusations of witchcraft weren’t spurious and each of the bloodlines were granted power by the dark side. The downside is that the power is both seductive and addictive and ages the user abnormally.

The boys rule the roost at the very exclusive boarding school they attend and leader of the pack, Caleb (Steven Strait), is about to come into his full power.

A new player in town (in the power stakes) may or may not be from a fifth bloodline, believed lost a long time ago.

The storyline is all over the place with some good ideas getting lost amidst the unnecessary adherence to the teen romance formula. The loose ends are crying out for a sequel but you would do better to read the book.

Based on a comic book which has a fair following and some nifty storylines, The Covenant was directed by Renny Harlin.

Clearly Harlin didn’t use the screenwriter from Long Kiss Goodnight (which he directed) because this teenage soapie is filled with corny dialogue straight out of the manual on how not to make a successful film.

Basically he took some beautiful candidates meant for an Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue, merged them with a comic book and ended up with cheesy scenes and nary a scary moment in sight (plus some continuity gaffes which could amuse the geek in you). It looks cool, but that’s about all.

Alternatively, someone probably wants to take the leaf out of Joss Whedon’s Buffy book. After all, that particularly successful cult TV series was a spin-off from a not-so-successful film.