Overall Rating
  Awesome: 11.25%
Worth A Look: 10%
Average: 12.5%
Pretty Bad: 41.25%
Total Crap: 25%
5 reviews, 50 user ratings
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| Skulls, The |
by Scott Weinberg
"Welcome to the world's best-known Secret Society!"
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Anyone ever NOT see a movie about a 'bland working class hero who compromises his ethics in order to fit in with the rich & powerful, only to discover too late that his new friends are evil and must now fight to regain his freedom and also expose the criminals'? Well, here's another one. With a fresh perspective or some enjoyable performances, it's certainly possible to breathe new life into almost any genre, but this silly movie fails at every turn. It's also really really stupid.Sheesh. Where to begin? Of course I had read about how monumentally moronic this movie is, but I always like to give every movie its fair shot. So I grabbed it from the video shelf, and went home looking forward to watching a movie I'd never seen before. (It doesn't happen that often at my video store.) I was fully prepared to rate the movie on its own merits (if any), and not let my opinion be altered by all the bad buzz.
Ten minutes later, I was wishing I had rented Where the Heart Is.
Some typically bland TV-show refugee actor (this time it's the staggeringly vapid Joshua Jackson of Dawson's Dreck) plays our "hero", a college ROWER who craves acceptance into a secret college society, known cleverly as The Skulls. (OooooWeeeeeeOoooooo!) Now, I describe this society as "secret" mainly because that's how it's constantly described in the movie. Ooh, 'it's a secret'. But for a secret society, they're doing a pretty damn good job of being omnipresent; The castle-like clubhouse has this gigantic SKULL on the roof. All the newly inducted members receive brand-new sports cars, big nasty scars on their wrists AND a fancy Rolex to cover the scar. ALL the students ever talk about is The Skulls and who is a member and who's not and skull skull skull. But don't forget - it's a secret.
A particularly stupid student sets out to expose the organization, only to wind up inadvertently demised. At every turn, the main idiot is met by some ominous authority figure that (of course) turns out to be a member of The Skulls! We've got tapped phones, bugged apartments, double-crosses, questionable motives, insipid dialogue, moronic plot contrivances and ridiculous chases. I've seen more exciting 'thrillers' on the Cooking Channel.
As an actor, Joshua Jackson rates somewhere between Kirk Cameron and Keanu Reeves. The only entertainment to be found in this movie lies in trying to figure out which emotion Josh is trying to convey. Anguish? Contentment? Bad Gas? Puberty? Faring only somewhat better is Paul (She's All That) Walker as the Perfect Blond Guy. But since his entire role consists of taking off his shirt while sweating, I don't know how impressive that really is. For fans of those "I KNOW that guy!" character actors, you've got a full plate here: William (Manhunter) Petersen, Christopher (Happy Gilmore) McDonald, and Craig (Poltergeist) are all on hand as some of the gloomy Head Skulls. (Ha Ha - Head Skulls! An accidental gag!) Unfortunately, these actors are given nothing to do, aside from glower menacingly, frown sternly, pontificate ponderously, and occasionally walk through a room.
None of these complaints would matter one iota if only this nonsensical movie were any FUN! But it isn't. The Skulls lazily offers subplots from a half-dozen other (considerably smarter) movies, a handful of familiar actors, and a screenplay that was better off back when it was lining Michael J. Fox's bird-cage.It's blatantly evident that movies of this sort are quickie slop jobs, hoping to gain a theatrical release while the leading man is still in minute 9 of his '15 minutes of fame'. The Skulls is pretty damn stupid, but the sheer emptiness of it prevents me from truly hating it; I watched this movie two days ago, and can remember nothing at all about it, except that it annoyed me.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1980&reviewer=128
originally posted: 11/06/00 16:08:13
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USA
31-Mar-2000 (PG-13)
UK
N/A
Australia
06-Jul-2000 (M)
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