Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Is The Covenant The Worst Movie Ever Made?

Probably.

This movie is a cinematic turd. Do not see it under any conditions. If you are stranded on a desert island with nothing but a solar-powered DVD player and a copy of this movie, do not watch it.

This movie is so unutterably awful that Superman Returns is almost merely horrible by comparison.

I want my three bucks back.

9 Comments:

Blogger Aa said...

On the plus side, we have another "Mystery Science Theater" candidate...

4:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The unresolved question is what provoked you, Winston Smith, sometime pragmaticist and liberal redneck, into seeing "The Covenant", even at three dollars. This is not like "The Life of David Gale", a big steaming turd of a film that was packaged as an an intellegent thriller-with-moral-resonance. (A couple of *its* major crimes: The dumbest and most telegraphed twist ending ever. Giving Kate Winslet, whom I would normally be happy to watch fill out complicated tax forms, schreechy lines in an annoying Chicagoan accent.) No, "The Covenant" was packaged in the preview, on the posters, and on the video box as exactly what it is: A pre-adolescent, adolescent power fantasy with cars, matrix-style special effects, and hints at the existence of sex for the 12 year old boys, and spikey-haired Corys with WB/occult powers for the 12 year old girls. There was never any hint that this film aspired to be anything else, unless the video store put it the box for "Aguirre, the Wrath of God". So I think you owe your fans, Winston, and explanation. What was it exactly that drew you to watch this film in the first place?

5:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, *I* want to know how The Covenant ranks against Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things on the WS Bad Movie Scale.

10:01 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And I want to know what was wrong with Superman Returns. I thought that was awesome (well, the first three-quarters) -- and I didn't even see it on a big screen.

10:56 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

So many questions...

Anonymous hits the most puzzling one...why, oh why did JQ and I see that thing?

A simple explanation:

We were jonesing for a horror movie, we were stuck in Harrisonburg, VA, which basically has only Blockbuster and its clones, we'd never heard anything about the movie, and the semi-reliable video store guy said that it was "o.k." (note: this turned out to be hyperbolically charitable. By which I mean patently false.) Well, o.k. was good enough for us, and we were tired of looking.

Oh, and I violated my own video store rule: if you don't know anything about a flick, don't get it if it doesn't have at least one endorsement by a semi-reputable source on the box.

Oh, what mistake...

*shudder*

11:05 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

sr:

Don't you think that _Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things_ is bad in such a way that it's actually fun to watch? "So bad that it's good," as they say?

Plus, ya know, *zombies*...

11:07 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Jimmy--

Jeez, man, I don't know what to say. At least I guess _Superman Returns_ might be the kind of movie that could strike one in different ways depending on one's mood at the time of seeing it... But JQ and I were practically throwing things at the screen by the end. I mean, all the unbelievably heavy-handed Jesus stuff was driving me bugshit by the end. Hell, I'm not even a Christian and the thing almost offended me just because it struck me as being so dopey.

I loathed that flick...but I could be wrong about that one.

But there's no way anybody with two neurons to rub together could possibly like _The Covenant_.

11:12 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I agree that the religious allegory stuff was pretty heavy-handed, but I thought it was quite beautiful and in places very cleverly written, and I liked the effects.

But I don't deny that we're in "reasonable people may disagree" territory.

PS I'll be in C'ville for four months from Saturday.

10:57 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Call me or die.

11:32 AM  

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