The Covenant: Brotherhood of Evil

You can't copyright a title. Therefore, it occasionally happens that two movies with the same title appear that are unassociated with each other. Such is the case with The Covenant, which came out twice in around a year, both times as horror movies. I can't comment on the latter release (having not seen it), but my guess based on watching the earlier Covenant is that version two is probably the better of the two. It would be hard to be worse.

This first movie stars Edward Furlong as David Goodman (he's essentially a good man, get it?), a political public relations guy who is gifted at his job and has an inexplicably devoted hot blonde wife. I say inexplicable, because even early in the movie, he comes off as weaselly and banal, hardly one to attact such a woman, let alone have her head-over-heel in love with him. Ah, well, love is blind, and soon he is also, the victim of a criminal act.

Fortunately, he is offered a chance at getting his sight restored by Michael Madsen, a villainous sort who gives David a demonic cane that restores his vision and also turns him evil (or rather, feeds on David's naturally evil tendencies). This leads to murders and other crimes, while David's wife investigates the origin of the cane. All of which leads to a climax that is silly and derivative.

Done correctly, this could have been a good movie, but instead, we get a bunch of standard movie cliches. When a car catches fire, it, of course, explodes with that strange triple blast that only happens in bad movies. When the wife is told by a professor that he has discovered important information and "Come see me" (because apparently he is incapable of saying any more over the phone), of course, he is dead by the next scene.

Beyond the cliches, the writing itself is dumb from the very start: in the prologue, we see Madsen's character retrieve a cane that is being held in a church. Despite the obvious dangers of the artifact, it is only guarded by an ancient priest and isn't even hidden. The rest of the plot is riddled with idiocies, but it is wrong to criticize the movie merely based on the plot. The direction and dialogue are equally bad (and the effects are barely passable and display the low budget this film clearly has), but probably the biggest failing is Furlong himself, who cannot even begin to carry the picture; he has neither the presence nor talent.

Clearly, if you make it through this movie, you'll realize it is really just a cheap rip-off of The Devil's Advocate. Keanu Reeves may never win best actor, but he is light years ahead of Furlong in his ability to star in a movie. Similarly, Charlize Theron is easily superior to her counterpart (whose name I have already forgotten) in this movie, and Michael Madsen is not close to Al Pacino in his ability to ham it up. So if you want to see The Covenant done right, see The Devil's Advocate instead. Or if you want to see The Devil's Advocate (or horror movies in general) done wrong, watch this film.

The DVD that is being released here is matched with the wrong description. This is not the 2006 Covenant that was released in September. That has yet to be announced.

I confused this movie with the 2006 release of The Covenant. I still went ahead and watched it, and it was a complete waste of my time. Edward Furlong drives me nuts. There is just something about him, his walk, the way he delivers his lines, that just really bothers me. The plot is prety thin and the acting isn't that great.

If you're desperate for a movie then I would consider it, otherwise, don't waste your time on it. I'm usually pretty lenient with movies, especially B movies, but this one is definitely not a "winner" in any respect.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 11 reviews  2.2 out of 5 stars