THE SKULLS

It is hard to imagine that someone reading the script to THE SKULLS would actually give it enough thoughtful consideration to allow it to become a major motion picture. THE SKULLS is a silly, and sometimes highly unbelievable, thriller that uncovers the lives of college students in secret societies. This movie appears to be promising in the beginning, but it slowly fades into a monotonous string of ridiculously outlandish happenings. That’s what you get when you try to make a movie about ambitious judges and senators encouraging Ivy Leaguers to prance around in monks’ hoods, play Truth or Dare in dungeons, brand each other, accept lavish gifts, and regard one another as “soul mates.”

Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson of TV’s DAWSON’S CREEK) is a townie who has worked his way into a well-respected Ivy League college (most likely Yale, judging by the big “Y” on the locker wall). Luke happens to be a star on the rowing team, so the Skulls conclude they must recruit him for their society. After an initiation gauntlet that includes running and biking through campus, being drugged, sleeping in a coffin, and being branded, Luke and a select group of other young men are invited to join the Skulls, the most secret of their campus’s secret societies.

Soon after joining the worst-kept secret on the East Coast, Luke finds himself with a number of life’s advantages thrust at him. His bank account suddenly has a balance of $20,000, his law school application is accepted before he even submits any paperwork, and the son of the Skulls’ chairman, Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker) is instantly his best friend. Luke must trust Caleb with his life, a difficult task when you are part of a society that believes murder may be more permissible than betraying one another’s trust.

Luke become estranged from his friends who warn him that “if it’s secret and elite, it can’t be good,” and his roommate, journalism junkie Will (Hill Harper) is soon found dead under unusual circumstances. This incident is devastating and suspicious to Luke. Good friend and love interest Cloe (Leslie Bibb of TV’s POPULAR) joins him in solving the mystery of Will’s death. In the meantime, the head Skulls are running around in cloaks, having secret meetings to destroy the lives of unfaithful Skulls, living by the society’s rules (considered higher than other laws) and taking votes that involve blackmail and shaking little deathhead rattles resembling a baby toy gone wrong.

Rob Cohen directed this movie from a screenplay by John Pogue, and all we can say is, You have to be kidding! THE SKULLS seems designed to appeal to the part of the female teenage group who only enjoy gawking at the leads, and the interest of male teenagers who are easily enthralled by any form of action, no matter how staged and unrealistic.

Despite the pathetic acting by Walker, Bibb and a number of other cast members, the movie was relatively clean, although an unhealthy smattering of gratuitous foul language litters this PG-13 movie. The idea of the secret society is a metaphor for death and darkness in the name alone, not to mention the group’s many demonic, cult-like rituals. The Skulls are not only corrupt, but also dishonest, unsympathetic and under the spell of power and money. The members treat the Skull book of rules like Christians would treat the Bible.

THE SKULLS is simply mindless entertainment thick with poor acting and characters with few redeeming qualities. Nothing in the movie was terribly disturbing, other than the way in which Will is killed (viewers are fortunate enough to see the act) and a steamy make-out session that Luke and Chloe share in the bathroom. It is a pointless exercise, a waste of time and money.