The Witches of Ipswich
Written: Sep 15 '06 (Updated Sep 17 '06)
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: The film starts off very well and has promise.
Cons: The movie loses its momentum with a cheeseball ending.
The Bottom Line: It started out so well, but the ending ... uggh lame cliched totally cheeseball!
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| shopaholic_man's Full Review: The Covenant |
This week's film was the Covenant, a sort of Buffy the Vampire, The Craft film. As the movie begins we meet the four "sons of Ipswich" the only descendants of the original five families that founded Ipswich, MA. As they fly down to a raging teenage party in the woods, we realize that these four young men have "Powers". Their eyes get wide like a cats, and magic stuff happens! As the plot progresses we learn that the first born son of each family with bloodlines to the original families of Ipswich has magic powers. On his 18th birthday, the first born son will "ascend" and get full powers. Our four covenant members a.k.a. the sons of Ipswich are; Caleb Danvers (Steven Strait), the groups moral compass and pretty boy; Pogue Parry (Taylor Kitsch), the bike riding bad boy who is dating muggle (to borrow a word from Harry Potter for non magical) Kate Tunney (Jessica Lucas); Reid Garwin (Toby Hemingway), the hot head who wants to use his powers, and frequently does over things like jealousy over a pretty girl and finally there is Tyler Sims (Chace Crawford), who is the amiable one. Its a perfect boy band mix! (bleah) Added to the mix is Kate's new roommate Sarah Wenham (Laura Ramsey), who takes an immediate shine to Caleb. We also meet a new student, Chase Collins (Sebastian Stan) who the four take an immediate disliking to because of Chase's alpha male posturing.
The teens attend Spencer Academy, a private school, and have the normal interests: teenage girls, pool, beer, fast cars and partying. Thus far, none of the sons of Ipswich has ascended, and they all try to keep their powers secret. They do use them for a variety of good purposes however. What would a teenage boy use magic powers for? Making a trouble maker vomit? Yup! Getting away from the police after an illegal party? Yup! Raising a pretty girls skirt to see if she's wearing panties? Yup! Fighting with each other over petty squabbles and jealousies? Yup! Nevertheless at the film's start we learn that the four have pretty much kept their powers in check, because with the POWER comes a curse! The more you use, the older your body gets. It reminded me of a character I had in the video game Fable. Using magic depletes the body, so a heavy magic user may well look 70 at age 30. The four have formed a Covenant not to let that happen.
Ah, but someone IS using their powers to kill one of the students, to send spiders and darklings to haunt their days and nights, and to nearly kill one of their girlfriends. Is it one of them? or someone else who also has the POWER?
*********************PLOT SPOILER********************
What I didn't like about the film is when we discovered who was using magic. He is a fifth son of Ipswich, and for some largely unexplained reason wants to kill the members of the Covenant and steal their power. This results in very cheesy and poorly done dialogue and a very special effects driven and largely uninteresting "Final Showdown". The problem with the film is that the set up for the finale just doesn't get you into it, and it seems tacked on by a different group of screen writers. The folks managed to make a pretty interesting film for the first two thirds, but the finale was too much of a cliche to make it remotely interesting. The two warlocks alternately throw energy balls at each other and throw one another into walls, beams and through windows. Yaawwwwwwwn.
****************END PLOT SPOILER***********************
Acting Eh, the acting here is fairly straightforward, I won't remember these kids names much after I looked them up on the IMDB for this review. Laura Ramsey was pretty and had a nice smile, but so do hundreds of other pretty blonde actresses. The male protagonists, as I mentioned, just seem to follow the boy band formula, which I found rather lame in and of itself. Except for Caleb, none of the characters are really developed. I did appreciate very much that the actors, despite doing a film set in Ipswich, MA did NOT go into that horrible fake New England accent that film makers like to use.(Perfect Storm or any Stephen King movie for example). The actors all played their roles a bit too seriously, the one note of humor was when the four make the car fly, and one says eat your heart out Harry Potter. If the actors are lucky, they will get to do the same roles they played in the movie when UPN or the WB picks up the Covenant to air after Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Direction / Cinematography / Sound / Special Effects The cinematography was great, the beauty of New England was well showcased and long winding autumn roads looked great. Much to my chagrin, I found in watching the credits that Quebec, Canada filled in for New England! I also loved the eerie sound and music for the films creepy and scary moments. It made me feel like I was watching a great film 'til the final showdown. Special effects were also top notch, and the film did deliver quite a few jump in your seat moments with the combination of great cinematography, music and special effects. However, in the end it was the unevenness of the film that brought it down. It was as if they had run out of ideas by the film's end.
Summary This movie could have been something, the set up was terrific, and I loved the rural New England feel of the film, and the premise and special effects. As I watched it, I was literally thinking of writing a four star review of it. However, when the final third turned into a cliched, lame, I've seen it a dozen times before "climactic showdown", my interest waned almost completely. The film immediately dropped from 4 stars to 2. I wish I could recommend this film, it had promise and I genuinely enjoyed 2/3s of it, but the lack of imagination of the ending ruined it for me.
Recommended:
No
Movie Mood: Teen-Flick
Worst Part of this Film: Ending
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