The Covenant (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Audio Commentary-Renny Harlin (Director) Featurette-Breaking the Silence: Exposing The Covenent
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	93:12
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (57:22)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Renny Harlin
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Steven Strait Laura Ramsey Sebastian Stan Taylor Kitsch Chace Crawford Toby Hemingway Jessica Lucas
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Tomandandy

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The Sons of Ipswich are four high school seniors attending the elite Spencer Academy. They share a supernatural legacy that goes back to the foundation of their town. Each is descended from one of five families of male witches, the fifth bloodline thought to have died out during the Salem witch trials. The emphasis here being on thought. Armed with a somewhat convoluted back-story and his own bag of magic tricks, the descendant of the fifth bloodline has returned to Ipswich to seize the powers of his magical brethren.

    The general concept of magic in the world of The Covenant is that the lads get a "taste" of power from their thirteenth birthday and ascend to the level of full power when they turn 18. Each witch has an amount of power that ties into their life - each time they use their magic, they lose a little bit of their life. Use of magic is also addictive, and the sinister fifth witch hopes to offset the negative effects of his own addiction by taking the powers of Caleb, the eldest of the four Sons of Ipswich, when he turns 18.

    Throw in a handful of teen angst and cheesy CGI and you have The Covenant in a nutshell.

    The Covenant is somewhat of a mixed bag. Its story isn't quite deep enough for the film to succeed dramatically in a post-Buffy The Vampire Slayer world, but it is deep enough to drive an action B-movie if the action scenes were up to snuff. Alas, the same story is pretty much true of the action scenes of the film - not bad, but rather unimaginative and only really good enough to support a decent plot. In the end, The Covenant is a reasonable popcorn flick, but one you are guaranteed to forget no sooner than you have finished watching.

Video

    The video is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video transfer looks very good. The image is nice and sharp and there is plenty of depth to the detail in darker areas and shadows. A mild level of grain is present, but it is at a consistent level throughout the film and only really noticeable on close examination. The colour scheme, a rather unoriginal blue-tinged gothic palette, comes out beautifully on DVD.

    There are no noticeable film artefacts during the movie. Mild aliasing can be seen in the background on occasion (such as at 78:08), but there are no other significant video compression artefacts noticeable.

    White English subtitles are available. Based on the portion I sampled with subtitles, the subtitles appear well timed and accurate.

    This is a RSDL disc. The layer change occurs at 57:22 but was not noticeable on my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    An English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kb/s) audio track and English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kb/s) commentary are available.

    The dialogue is fairly clear and at a reasonable level in the mix. It generally appears in sync with the video, but ADR is occasionally noticeable.

    The soundtrack is a rather unoriginal, but fitting mash-up of electro-metal (a la White Zombie). The mix is a little muddy, certainly no show pony but good enough for the job.

    The surround channels and subwoofer get a modest degree of use, but it is rarely subtle. Ambient environmental effects, such as rain, are put to good use, but much of the surround use in the action scenes is rather pedestrian - big pans and loud thuds.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Animated Menus with Audio

    After opening with the irritating anti-piracy trailer, the viewer is presented with a stylish but fairly basic animated menu.

Audio Commentary from Director Renny Harlin

    A rather dry technical commentary from director Renny Harlin. Harlin has plenty to say and enough interesting anecdotes (and buff ab worship) for the commentary to warrant a listen.

Breaking the Silence: Exposing The Covenent Featurette (18:46)

    A making of featurette. This one is a bit of a mixed bag. The first half is filled with painfully self-congratulatory guff from the cast and director. The second half features some interesting bits and pieces on the effects.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 editions of the film both feature the same extras. The Region 1 edition features an additional French Dolby Digital 2.0 language track, putting it ahead of the local release by a hair.

    A so-so gothic tale about teenage warlocks beating their chests. It doesn't really succeed dramatically or on an action level, but nor it doesn't fail on either level. Definitely worth a hire before you think about purchasing this one.

    The disc features a modest swag of extras, an excellent video presentation and a good audio presentation.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall