Initially tolerable but increasingly stupid.
The Skulls (2000)
Tomatometer
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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
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Reviews for The Skulls
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.
The Skulls is such a generic, automatic-pilot movie -- seemingly stitched together out of disconnected outtakes from the USA Network archive.
The writing is so bad that it's impossible not to laugh out loud at scenes intended to be scary or serious.
The Skulls is less interested in politics than in profitably flattering the suspicions and resentments of its intended teenage audience.
Director Rob Cohen has crafted a bouncing escape yarn stocked with sharp twists and twisted characters.
A silly, hackneyed college suspenser put across with all the contrived banality of a bad '70s TV movie.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The film drags in the middle, ends with an anticlimax and requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief throughout.
As a breakout role for WB star Jackson, The Skulls doesn't fare as well.
It's so ludicrous in so many different ways it achieves a kind of forlorn grandeur.
Latest News for The Skulls
June 12, 2007:
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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...
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