RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | In Theaters
  • | Opening
  • | Upcoming
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
  • | Showtimes
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / On DVD / The Skulls
The Skulls

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Get this Movie
  • Buy Poster External Icon
  • Visit Official Site External Icon
Bookmark and Share

The Skulls (2000)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
4 %
Tomatometer
Template ImageTemplate Image

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted:26

Fresh:1

Rotten:25

Average Rating:2.9/10

Consensus: The Skulls is full of nonsense and empty of good script and plot.

Runtime: 1 hr 47 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: At a top Ivy League college, a prestigious secret society has begun recruiting new members. One of their selections is Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson), a local working-class boy and star of the crew... At a top Ivy League college, a prestigious secret society has begun recruiting new members. One of their selections is Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson), a local working-class boy and star of the crew team. After a dangerous and arcane induction ceremony, Luke and other young men are welcomed into the Skulls, an elite fraternity with two former presidents and numerous powerful and important men as members. Luke enjoys his newfound privileges, which include fancy cars, money, and admittance to the law school of his choice. But when Luke's best friend and editor of the school newspaper goes investigating into the Skulls' inner sanctum and winds up mysteriously dead, Luke believes there may be sinister forces at work. Luke tries to quit the Skulls, refusing to go along with a cover-up involving the wealthy Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker), son of the Skulls' president, and soon ominous forces are threatening not only Luke but his girlfriend, Chloe (Leslie Bibb). But can Luke get away from the Skulls, or is he a part of them forever? THE SKULLS is a creepy blending of conspiracy thriller ideas, based on the actual Skull & Bones Fraternity at Yale, which included screenwriter John Pogue as a member. [More]

Starring: Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, Craig T. Nelson, Leslie Bibb

Starring: Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, Craig T. Nelson, Leslie Bibb, Hill Harper, Steve Harris, Christopher McDonald, Jenn Melino, William L. Petersen

Director: Rob Cohen

Director: Rob Cohen
Screenwriter: John Pogue
Producer: Neal H. Moritz, John Pogue
Composer: Randy Edelman

[See More Credits]

Get This Movie

Rent DVD
 
 

Click on the "ADD" button to put this movie into your Netflix queue.

 
 
Buy DVD
 
 
Release:

May 22, 2001

No Details Exist
 
 

Reviews for The Skulls

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
  • DVD
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Initially tolerable but increasingly stupid.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
03/05/07
Lisa Alspector
Lisa Alspector
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

In an otherwise boneheaded hour and a half of intrigue and silliness, The Skulls does offer one of the more memorable lines of dialogue in recent movies.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
03/22/02
Liam Lacey
Liam Lacey
Globe and Mail
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The Skulls is such a generic, automatic-pilot movie -- seemingly stitched together out of disconnected outtakes from the USA Network archive.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
01/01/00
Andrew O'Hehir
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The writing is so bad that it's impossible not to laugh out loud at scenes intended to be scary or serious.

Full Review Source: Associated Press | comment Comment
01/01/00
Christy Lemire
Christy Lemire
Associated Press
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The Skulls is less interested in politics than in profitably flattering the suspicions and resentments of its intended teenage audience.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Dave Kehr
Dave Kehr
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

This movie never really gets off the ground.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Director Rob Cohen has crafted a bouncing escape yarn stocked with sharp twists and twisted characters.

Full Review Source: Mr. Showbiz | comment Comment
01/01/00
F.X. Feeney
F.X. Feeney
Mr. Showbiz
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Irredeemably knuckleheaded teen-targeted tosh.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
01/01/00
Geoff Pevere
Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A silly, hackneyed college suspenser put across with all the contrived banality of a bad '70s TV movie.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
01/01/00
Godfrey Cheshire
Godfrey Cheshire
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Like guano in a bat cave, the implausibilities pile up until the audience can justify its time and expense only by laughing at the screen.

Full Review Source: New York Daily News | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jack Mathews
Jack Mathews
New York Daily News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The contrivances pile up more quickly than snowfall in a Buffalo winter, and the ending is so lame that it provoked guffaws from theater-goers attending the screening along with me.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
01/01/00
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Hare-brained suspense thriller.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jan Stuart
Jan Stuart
Newsday
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The Skulls plummets into the realm of ludicrous failure.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The preview audience chatted happily all the way through the movie, indicating its destiny as a perennial rental favorite for frat-house living rooms across the U.S.A.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jessica Winter
Jessica Winter
Village Voice
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Shot from one of the worst scripts to make it to the big screen in recent memory, it represents the sludge at the bottom of the Hollywood barrel.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
01/01/00
Jonathan Foreman
Jonathan Foreman
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The film drags in the middle, ends with an anticlimax and requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief throughout.

Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News | comment Comment
01/01/00
Kendall Morgan
Kendall Morgan
Dallas Morning News
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

To call this movie simply absurd is almost to pay it a complement.

comment Comment
01/01/00
Michael Wilmington
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Don't expect much brainpower in The Skulls.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/01/00
Peter Stack
Peter Stack
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

As a breakout role for WB star Jackson, The Skulls doesn't fare as well.

Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | comment Comment
01/01/00
Robin Rauzi
Robin Rauzi
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It's so ludicrous in so many different ways it achieves a kind of forlorn grandeur.

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
01/01/00
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
At the Movies
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date)
Text View | 1 2 >> >|
all

Latest News for The Skulls

June 12, 2007: Is "Fletch Won" Back On Again?
Last thing we heard about a new "Fletch" flick was that "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence would direct and (probably) Zach Braff would star. Well, forget all that. More...

September 27, 2006: "Stealth" Director Gets "Scared Straight"
Director Rob Cohen, best known for movies like "The Skulls," "The Fast and the Furious," and "xXx," has signed on to direct a prison thriller... More...

July 28, 2005: RT Critical Consensus: "Sky High" Soars, "Stealth" Crashes, and Diane Lane and John Cusack Go Dateless
The willing suspension of disbelief is often essential to the moviegoing experience. This week's wide releases provide no such relief. We will be asked to believe that a fighter... More...

July 11, 2005: Pogue Pens Remake of a French Fright Flick
Screenwriter John Pogue has sold his pitch for a remake of the 2002 French horror film "Malefique" to Paramount, says Variety. Producer Neal Moritz... More...

See All

More DVDs

Close
Top Rentals
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
77% 77% The Hangover
88% 88% Inglourious Basterds
66% 66% Public Enemies
24% 24% G-Force
44% 44% Night at the Museum: B…

More Rentals…

New On DVD This Week
Tomatometer Percentage Movie
82% 82% Paranormal Activity
57% 57% 9
44% 44% Jennifer's Body
58% 58% A Perfect Getaway

More New Releases…

See All

RT On Current TV

The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current TV

DIRECTV 358 | Comcast 107 | DISH Network 196 | More...

Learn how you can be part of the show

More...

What’s Hot On RT

Critics' Best & Worst

Critics' Best & Worst

RT's critic friends offer their choices

Total Recall

Total Recall

We list 10 New Year's Eve-themed films!

2010 Movie Preview

2010 Movie Preview

Find next year's top releases!

Shrek is Back!

Shrek is Back!

Celebrate Shrek's return with this trailer!

Other News

Close
  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Harold Ramis Discusses Filmography, Teases Ghostbusters 3 Source: Heeb Magazine
10
  • National Film Registry Adds 2009 Selections Source: Hollywood Reporter
6
  • New Moon Tops Moviefone's 2009 List Source: Hollywood Reporter
25
  • Star Trek Tops 2009's Most-Pirated Movies List Source: Hollywood Reporter
19
  • Weekly Ketchup: Peter Jackson's Secret Sci-Fi Project
111
  • New Toy Story 3 Clip, Photos Posted Source: Slashfilm
26
  • Danny Trejo Talks Machete, Possible Sequels Source: Collider.com
14
  • It's Official: Jackass 3-D Coming in 2010 Source: Collider.com
16
  • Bryan Singer Returning to X-Men for First Class Source: Superhero Hype
102
  • Mark Strong Talks Kick-Ass, John Carter, and Robin Hood Source: Collider.com
1
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Avatar, Sherlock, and Alvin Team Up To Break Records
353
  • Critics Choose Must-Sees and Worsts of 2009
160
  • RT Editors Choose Their Favorite Films of 2009!
114
  • RT's Ten Most Popular Movies of 2009
41
  • Weekly Ketchup: Peter Jackson's Secret Sci-Fi Project
37
  • Total Recall: New Year's Eve Movies
33
  • RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: 9 and Paranormal Activity
30
  • Friday Harvest: Sherlock Holmes, Toy Story 3, and more!
10
  • Critics Consensus: The White Ribbon Is Certified Fresh
5
  • What We're Watching on Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox!
2
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • Five Favorite Films With Peter Jackson
72
  • Robert Downey Jr. talks Sherlock Holmes & Iron Man 2 - RT Interview
21
  • Director Ruben Fleischer Talks Zombieland
2
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist
17
  • Eric Bana talks Love the Beast - RT Interview
12
  • Fight Club Sound Designer Reflects on Film's 10th Anniversary
24
  • James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
8
  • John Hurt Talks Harry Potter, Quentin Crisp and Alien - The RT Interview
16
  • Terry Gilliam Talks Doctor Parnassus
24
  • Wes Anderson Talks Fantastic Mr. Fox - RT Interview
9
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • The Skulls at Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh Links

Featured
Best Nude Scenes of the Year
Best Nude Scenes of the Year External Link

Moviefone lists their top ten nude scenes from film in 2009.

Hollywood.com's Best of 2009
Hollywood.com's Best of 2009 External Link

Thomas Leupp offers us Hollywood.com's take on the best films of the year.

Best Dozen of the Decade
Best Dozen of the Decade External Link

Last week, MSN gave us their top 09 films. Now see what their favorites of the decade are!

Top 10 Movies of 2009
Top 10 Movies of 2009 External Link

TIME chimes in with their own list of the best films released this year.

Top 20 of the Decade
Top 20 of the Decade External Link

Click through to see which movies BuzzSugar placed in their Best-of-Decade list!

Promos
Follow RT on Twitter
Follow RT on Twitter External Link

Get the latest Tomatometer updates on upcoming movies!

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Games| Celebs List| Newsletter
IGN Logo
About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Press | Careers
IGN | GameSpy | Comrade | Arena | FilePlanet | Direct2Drive | GameSpy Technology
TeamXbox | Game Sites | VE3D | CheatsCodesGuides | GameStats | GamerMetrics
AskMen.com | Rotten Tomatoes | GIGA.DE | What They Play | Battlefield Heroes
By continuing past this page, and by your continued use of this site, you agree to be bound by and abide by the User Agreement.
Copyright 1998-2009, IGN Entertainment, Inc. | Support | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | Subscribe to RT's XML feed! RSS Feeds
IGN’s enterprise databases running Oracle, SQL and MySQL are professionally monitored and managed by Pythian Remote DBA.
Certain product data ©1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.