The Covenant & The Descent

One of my least favorite things in movies is when I can't tell characters apart. Atrociously bad movies and even many good movies often have easy to read characterizations --partially because most characters get just one or two personality traits (the angry one, the rebellious one, etc...) But if you have a group scene and you're still trying to learn the names and a casting director has cast look-alikes: good luck. You're on your own.

I'm not proud to admit it but I saw Renny Harlin's The Covenant today. Though it's straight up bad in every way I found the casting of the leads to be especially confusing. These two guys to your left are the hero and the villain. They aren't dead ringers but close enough. They both are blessed with Abercrombie bodies and puffy sensual lips. The movie doesn't help sort them out. They are given similar wardrobes and similar haircuts.

And just to f*** with me a little more --here's another cosmic joke: The actors have alliterative names: Sebastian Stan and Steven Strait and so do the characters: They play "Chase" and "Caleb" respectively. Argh.

Further compounding the problem is this: the movie is one of the thousands shot with no discernable visual identity of its own. It uses that cold blueish filter (a look has been ubiquitous at least since the days of Terminator 2) which makes everyone's skin tone the same, too. When you get to the climactic fight between the hero and villain it turns out they have identical superpowers: creating balls of boring CGI energy to hurl at each other. They both have the same color contacts to signify the use of their powers. Worse yet, the movie can't even be bothered to give them different colored energy balls. Couldn't it at least have been like a lightsaber thing? I mean a lightsaber is a lightsaber but you could always tell which one belonged to whom based on its color. Work with me here filmmakers --at least a little.

I had the same problem to a lesser degree with the much better horror film The Descent. It took me awhile before I was able to differentiate the lead blond girl from the other blondes. But that was really only a problem during the initial cave sequences when they were all wearing the same headgear and filmed in groups. Once the carnage started whittling down the size of the cast and their equipment it became easier.

I admit right up front that I'm not the right audience for horror films. I often feel I'm missing the subtext since it's a genre so many cinephiles seem to both adore and engage with intellectually. So I leave the love to Nick and Rich who both offer excellent, thought-provoking reviews which were more fun for me to read (as a non aficianado of the genre) than the movie was for me to watch. Despite my aversion to horror, I thought The Descent was 100 times better than the last film I saw which happened to feature a girl being hunted in a subterannean locale... so that must be saying something.

The Covenant: potentially interesting premise (maybe a series or a comic book would've worked better to flesh out the constantly intruding backstory) but absolutely flat execution. D-
The Descent: surprisingly frisky horror but still not really my cuppa. B