The Skulls II

The premise of the Skulls and it's sequel is that we are looking at the inner workings of one of America's (fictional) secret societies.

Unfortunately because it is a sequel it will be compared to the original.

This film has the same premise as the first film. A young college student who is 'tapped' to become one of the elite of the elite, a problem crops up and there is a lot of running in fear for the life of our hero.

This installment offers up more sexual energy and more likable (and well played )dislikable characters, a few minor changes in casting could have been made. For instance the abundance of overly WASPish pretty boys. Without debating how ethnically diverse secret societies are, I'm sure all the younger members are not all pretty boys.

The story, what little of it was there, does turn the previous movie on it's ear, sort of. Which would have been more refreshing had it had the sence of suspense and wonder of the original and excluded the somewhat rushed-wanna-be-a-cool-plot-twist-but-wasn't ending. Make no mistake though, I am not saying that the first one had a lot of suspense, it just seemed to have more.Unfortunately the performances of the young actors could not bring this movie to life.

All in all, I would recommend it if you are not looking for much depth or story.If you're looking for a movie to satisfy look for something else. I would give it a 3 out of 10.

So, where should I go with this one? I am pretty sure that most can realize how bad of a film this was without needing me to spell it out for you, but then some of us do need guides, so here it goes. The Skulls II is a classic example of a movie company trying to monopolize on the semi-success of the original. Using the rules of low-budget sequel making, they get lesser-known actors to replace the better known actors from the original. They repeat several select scenes that resemble the original so that the audience doesn't get confused, while all the while continuing with a similar story from the original. At first glance, you may not realize that there is a difference between these two films outside of the grade D actors that are trying to make a name for themselves. When will Hollywood realize that they need to stop doing this? The original Skulls film was not a box-office sensation, so why suck even more money from an already dried well? Then to see that there is already another film released for those of us that are foaming at the mouth to get more of this secret society makes me sick. Why Hollywood, why?

Let me begin by getting the shredder out. The acting was horrible. I mean, I have seen some bad acting in many of the films that I have seen over the years, but that done by Robin Dunne and Nathan West was despicable. It was obvious from the opening sequence that they were more excited about being in a film than the overall quality of the film. This was not a good sign. The only successful task that these young actors did for me was taking me from minute zero to minute ninety-eight. The progressed the film, if that is what you want to call it. Of course, how can you act if you are handed shoddy material anyway? None of these characters were developed or better yet underdeveloped. I would have been happier with underdeveloped characters because I could have blamed the writers, but instead I have found that both are to blame. For lack of a better word, the actors in this film were lazy. They accepted bad parts for money, and that is never a way to boost your career. If you have noticed, these guys haven't gone further with their jobs, and I would be blaming this film if I were them for their lack of good employment.

Another aspect to toss in the shredder is the concept of continuity. When one directs a film, you must possess within your bag of goodness the ability to move the characters from point A to point B fluently. For those of you that have seen this film, you will probably agree with me that director Joe Chappelle did not have this talent. There were so many holes in this story that he tried to fill with scenes from the original that forced Chappelle to shoot himself in the foot. I could not get involved with the plot of this film because one moment the organization was doing something, and the next they were doing something completely the opposite. Perhaps it was the laziness of the characters that opened these holes, but we cannot leave out Chappelle. He should have pushed his team further and used his leadership abilities. I have spoken before that I felt as if the actors were there to collect a paycheck and jump-start their careers, I feel the same about Joe Chappelle. Could he not see the overall awfulness of this film? When did he finally look at the finished product and say, 'We have an Oscar winner here!' If he said this, then I would question Chappelle's ability to direct.

Finally, I would like to make a quick comment about the use of CGI in this film. For those of you who have seen this horrible, horrible film, you probably missed it because of the burning sensation coming from your eyes. It says something about a film when the only use of CGI is on a trashcan. A trashcan being hurled towards a person is a waste of studio money and viewers patience. I laughed hysterically when I saw this because I could see Chappelle getting excited about this scene. What kind of damage could a plastic trash can do to anyone? It is a tough question, and I am thankful that hard-earned money went towards the creation of this piece of cinematic history.

Overall, I have had enough about this organization. For this series to continue, the creators, directors, or film studios will have to completely break the norm and go out on a limb. As I can see from the next one it looks like they have a woman that wants to join the organization. That is not the limb that I am talking about. This (now trilogy) was failed from the beginning, yet the Hollywood recycle factor chose to release it over and over again. It was sad to see these actors and director fail, but it should have been obvious from the beginning when they were handed the direct-to-video release script for The Skulls II. I encourage you to avoid this film at all costs. There is nothing redeemable in it at all.

Grade: * out of *****

Remember The Skulls (2002) one of a spate of "Cool" dramas that included Cruel Intentions (1999) and Anti-Trust (2001). I didn't think much of it, though I appreciated the concept I thought they dropped the ball.

So what do you do when you drop a ball? You pick it right back up again and that's what they did here.

With no real connection to the first movie they started afresh and maybe that was for the best. Starring Robin Dunne and Lindy Booth it's the same formula, just tweeked and done slightly better.

It tells the story of a young man getting initiated into the secret order known as The Skulls, a way for a young man to have a future full of guaranteed wealth, power and all the things that come with that.

But he starts to have suspicions about the order and what they do behind the scenes, leading to this passable thriller.

You won't find anything very original here but for what it is it's watchable enough but still hardly impressing me with The Skulls franchise.

One movie left, hopefully they kept improving.

The Good:

Lindy Booth

Passable plot

The Bad:

Seen it all before

Not exactly exanding the franchise

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Farting when a girl tickles you may not be as common as I try to make out

When running away from a car the most logical thing to do is run down the road as opposed to off to the side

Half the catering budget went to Aaron Ashmore

**SPOILERS** Being tapped by "The Skulls" to be inducted into their secret bone-head society is something that every young collage student in this unnamed Ivy League school has been dreaming of and young Ryan Sommers, Robin Dunne, is one of the lucky few who's been chosen. Instead of taking his role seriously as an up and coming Skull Ryan pulls off a joke on the "Skulls" during one of their secret ceremonies that. This bone-head prank lands him and his "Skull Soulmate" Jeff Colby, Christopher Ralph, on the Skull Sh*t-list and has Ryan and Jeff doing toothbrush duty at the "Tombs", the Skulls headquarters, attic.

Hearing some noise Ryan notices, outside the attic window Skull member Matt "Hutch" Hutchinson, Aaron Ashmore, fooling around with the captain of the collages Womans Lacrosse Team Dianna Rollins, Margot Gagnon, and after getting good and drunk she loses her balance and fall off the roof. It's then when all hell breaks loose with top and senior members of the Skulls moving heaven and earth to keep Dianna's death from going public and implicating their secret society; which no one is supposed to know even exists.

There's a lot of huffing and puffing and nothing else as Ryan is put through the ringer in an effort to first quite and then later terminate him to keep this incident from reaching the newspapers and exposing the mysterious Skulls in the most unflattering way.

It's hinted in the movie, with references to the first Skulls film, that killing is nothing new and surprising with the Skulls. So why are they so panic-stricken now when with their total control of the media police doctors lawyers as well as local and state politicians to cover-up of Dianna's death!

We have instead of a powerful society totally controlling Ryan and later his turn-coat brother Greg, James Gallarders, having to go all-out to shut them up before they spill the beans on them and possibly exposing their secret society. Even the evidence of Dianna's death that was covered up by the local coroner Dr. Sprague (Simon Reynolds), who faked it up to be a traffic accident, is so shabbily hidden that a schoolboy could have found and stolen it. Dr. Sprangue wasn't that effective either in hiding his report on Dianna's death by leaving his office opened as he was checking out the latest, and most well-developed, female students for the towns collage next semesters Anatomy class.

Poor Ryan loses his up-tight and scheming girlfriend Ali, Ashley Cafagana-Tesoro, who only loved him because he was a Skull and someone who can open doors for her in the world of power politics. As soon as he wasn't Ali threw Ryan out of her dorm and her life and hooked up with Hutch who killed Dianna. Ali later even threatened to press charges against a confused Ryan for giving her a shinier on her left eye! Something she got from tickling Ryan not him purposely belting her.

In the end all the dirty laundry about the Skulls comes out in the wash due to Ryan and his new girlfriend and Ali's dorm-mate Kelly, Lindy Booth. With the not now so secret secret organization facing criminal charges in Dianna's, as well as who knows how many others, death they get their big guns out as they gather together in the Skulls secret "War Room". There they decide to put an end to all this shenanigans once in for all by kicking out the person who they feel is the reason for all this bad publicity they've been getting lately.

As usual the skulls screw up again, in trying to protect themselves and the future of the secret Skull society by dumping on the very person who would have saved them all this embarrassment. The person who tried t keep the all-too-normal and clear thinking, for the Skulls, Ryan from being taped into their lame-brain society in the first place.

The first 'Skulls' had a tailor made premise ripe for cheesy over-the-top moments & was easy to drink down because it had a few well known faces in the cast. 'Skulls II' - the first of two dtv sequels - can't say the same thing. The movie is adequately made, but it's strictly by the numbers repeating much of the same ground on a cheaper scale with no splashy moments to make up for it.

University student Ryan Sommers (Robin Dunne) is about to join the Skulls but has mixed feelings about it. He doesn't take the ceremony seriously earning him some irk from the higher ups and is punished with some menial cleaning. Doing such, he witnesses another member of the Skulls with a girl who falls off a roof. Certain he saw her die and then convinced there's a coverup.

The sequel directly acknowledges the events of the first film and there's your standard twists, betrayals, budding romance and cars trying to run Ryan down. None of it terribly exciting if you've seen your share of movies. Dunne is sufficient as your vanilla lead and there's some very brief female nudity. Directed by Joe Chappelle who got his start doing fare such as 'Halloween 6' & 'Phantoms', I'm not sure this is a step up.