The Skulls - I teschi

While his character was believable, I could NOT take Joshua Jackson seriously in this film at all. He reminds me too much of Joe from Blue's Clues. Overall the movie was OKAY...wasn't too thrilled with it, but hey, at least I got to see Paul Walker! ;).

6/10

This is one of those pretty entertaining-yet-not memorable stories. It's about a "secret society" in an Ivy League school and a subsequent cover-up of a murder. There is a neat little twist about a half hour before the end of the film.

The college kids in here are no-name actors but all credible not offensive or annoying. The film is nicely photographed. Apparently, the film was successful enough to spawn a sequel, so that infers this has enough going for it to check it out if you haven't watched it.

It's okay, but don't expect anything super. However, I have a good friend who thinks this movie is super, and he's usually very critical.

Joshua Jackson plays a very smart student who is eager to get into law school. Then he is approached by Paul Walker's character who manages to get him to join a secret society only for the smartest of the smartest students known as The Skulls. It seems that everything is going well but then things start to get much more darker.

On the face of it, it seems like a brilliant idea for a movie. A good breakaway from the typical teen movie. However, it didn't really make good use of the potential it had to be a great movie. The story was made too thin than it should have been and some other details including character development and about this secret society itself were left rather sketchy.

I believe that if these details are elaborated on then this would be a much better and more memorable movie than it actually is.

In life, people learn to like all kinds of things. In time, they will realize there are groups for these interests. Some groups are just for recreational reasons, while others can be for more serious topics. There are also some people who don't even know about it. The reason is for the amount of power or influence these associations may have on society. The thing is, what most of these secret cliques have in real life is the capability to conceal itself so far that it is very hard to pinpoint. This of course leads only to a very select few who can speak to it but in the end, sound like they're out of their mind. In short, conspiracy nuts. That's essentially the topic of focus in this feature film. It's an interesting idea, but the overall execution is just average. It's nothing out of the ordinary.

Written by John Pogue (U. S. Marshals (1998)), the plot is about your everyday looking college student Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson) hoping to be a success after he graduates. He, his best friend Will (Hill Harper) and close female friend Chloe (Leslie Bibb) very much share the same values. Additionally, they all think a group known as "The Skulls" is one of the strangest ones around. That is until Luke is brought in to join them. That's when things turn all upside down for him. Again, the idea of secretly powerful societies is not an uncommon plot but if done right, can be captivating to watch. This unfortunately is just watered-down. For one, the group is publicly known but operates secretly. It's a bit contradictory to say the least. Who operates a tight ship with sloppy security? How is that even allowable?

That's just one question out of many. The group has a rule book of over 100 things to follow by. Yet, there seem to be a lot of loose ends hanging around. Additionally, while the group is promoted internally as being able to effect outcomes elsewhere, there's no examples of it. Much of everything is so vague someone could assume they could impact anything. That's not the only odd thing going on. Once Luke the protagonist and his "soul mate" Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker) meet at their first initiation, Luke's character flips to the exact opposite of the values to Will and Chloe. It's not that Luke is an unlikeable character, but he is a clichéd dull one. It's surprising director Rob Cohen who wasn't fresh to the job by this point didn't callout any of these issues.

Not even Caleb Mandrake is consistent in his character arc. One moment he's saying one thing and the next he's doing the exact opposite. That's not saying the acting is unwatchable though. Joshua Jackson is believable as the lead. It's just his character is motivationally confused. Paul Walker who at the time was mostly unknown still pulls in a performance that mostly makes sense for the story. Leslie Bibb is also okay despite her character falling into the expected clichés as well. She would later have roles in Trick 'r Treat (2007) and Iron Man (2008). What's more interesting is that William Petersen is also in this movie as a member of The Skulls and would later share screen time with Hill Harper in the CSI shows. There's also appearances from Christopher McDonald, Craig T. Nelson and Steve Harris.

The camerawork was acceptable for the picture. Shot by Shane Hurlbut, the camera makes use of its surroundings as well as incorporating dizzying shots to convey hysteria. This is pretty good considering this was his first theatrical film credit. Also done acceptably was the film score composed by Randy Edelman. While known for having more stock sounding music, Edelman does create a main theme for the story. It's not the most memorable, but it's not really forgettable either. Better that than just soundscape textural noise produced by other composers. What Edelman relies on for this work is piano keys to convey the feeling of the tracks. Thankfully the album is very much easy listening as well. Like usual though, Edelman's albums do not consist of much runtime. So best not to expect too much.

The crew behind the camera and actors performing do their jobs like they should. It's just the writing that challenges those things and weighs it down. The premise seems sloppily put together and the character arcs are erratic.

The Skulls is a thinly veiled allusion to one of the purportedly most secret of all secret societies, Skull and Bones, the Yale group to which George Bush (the former president) belonged. You know all about those secret societies; they breed smart, rich young men who will put other smart, rich young men in power, and then those men will put other smart, rich young men in power, and so forth and yadda yadda yadda. You can find out all sorts of things about Skull and Bones online, and I suppose there's a chance some of those things are actually true. But for the purposes of this movie - and this review - suffice to say that The Skulls is a small group mostly made up of rich white kids who get paid scholarships, free cars, free women, the whole works. And what does this secret society ask for in return? Unbound loyalty, of course. Unquestioning and absolute loyalty, kind of like the Mob, really, only the Mob is more overtly criminal.

The story focuses on Luke, a townie at Yale University. Luke wants to go to law school, but the tuition's a little high. He's parentless and low on funds, so of course he's prime pickings for The Skulls. Will he join them? Darn tootin' he will, despite the protests of his best friend and this hot young blonde he likes. They try to reason with him, believing their friendship is stronger than his need to be a lawyer, but they're wrong. If they were right, we'd have no movie.

So he joins, and wouldn't you know it, all kinds of bad things happen to poor Luke. There's murder, there's corruption, and gosh and golly, our boy just doesn't know who to trust. More twists than a Poe novel; the only problem is, they're not believable twists. If you're cynical about this kind of movie (as I am), you'll laugh out loud many times, both at the acting and the dialogue. The worst offense is in the timing, quite frankly. At no point are we led to believe that this society could be a GOOD thing. We know immediately it's bad. See, I think to be truly sinister you need to wear a mask of credibility. If I already know how bad you are, I won't be as afraid of you or as startled when you actually do something despicable.

This is a real chucklefest, in the same vein as Final Destination, Urban Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer (both movies), and even the Scream movies, which I didn't care for (but I know many of you did, so whatcha gonna do). You have an attractive cast spouting incredible lines in unbelievable situations. The old moviegoer in us wonders what Jimmy Stewart or Gregory Peck would have done in this movie when they were younger (and, in Stewart's case, alive), but that's probably a philosophical debate best left to denizens of the old critics' home. As for me, I'd say pass on The Skulls - it's as hollow as its name might imply.