The following are capsule reviews of movies recently reviewed by the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Covenant (Screen Gems)
Supernatural thriller set in a New England boarding prep school about four warlocks (Steven Strait, Taylor Kitsch, Toby Hemingway and Chase Crawford) --- all good-looking descendants of the infamous Salem witches --- who must battle a sinister student (Sebastian Stan) who wants their powers to augment his own magic, while navigating jealousies within their group. Director Renny Harlin keeps things dark and dank, but the moody atmospherics can't disguise a run-of-the-mill script which substitutes schlocky sorcery effects for story and suspense. Some supernatural violence, a few disturbing images, occult elements, rear nudity, sexually suggestive situations and humor, and recurring crude language. (A-III, PG-13)

Crank (Lionsgate)
Noisy and endlessly unpleasant action film about a Los Angeles hit man (Jason Statham) who must keep in perpetual motion after he finds out that a rival thug (Jose Pablo Cantillo) has poisoned him with a substance designed to kill him within seconds if his heart rate drops. Co-writers and directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor load on the bloody video-game-style action in an empty and mindless exercise. Excessive and graphic violence and gore, lewd sexual content, vulgar humor, recurring partial nudity, drug use and pervasive rough and crude language and profanity. (O, R)

The Wicker Man (Warner Bros.)
Uninspired remake of the 1973 cult thriller, here transposed from Scotland to the Pacific Northwest, about a policeman (Nicolas Cage) who, investigating the disappearance of a young girl, becomes entangled in the strange goings-on of a secretive island community of modern pagans led by a mysterious matriarch (Ellen Burstyn). Following the basic outline of the original, minus the eroticism and adding a feminist twist, director Neil LaBute generates some suspense in his cerebral approach, but overall the film is a bland and unnecessary retread, more hokey than creepy as the story progresses. Some disturbing images, including a burning human sacrifice, pagan rituals, an instance of rough language and scattered crude expressions and profanity. (A-III, PG-13)

---CNS