THE SKULLS A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2000 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): *
Preposterous with a capital P. THE SKULLS is directed with ham-handed excess and predictability by Rob Cohen, who last gave us Sylvester Stallone in the ludicrous DAYLIGHT. DAYLIGHT, on the other hand, was a masterpiece of plausibility and subtlety next to this absurd film.
The young cast of THE SKULLS, mainly television and celluloid heartthrobs, play characters who have the moral compass of people in the presence of strong magnets. As scripted by John Pogue, the would-be thriller has a Swiss-cheese plot that provides many unintentional laughs. The over-the-top cinematography (Shane Hurlbut) is heavy on bright lights bathing every room, and the creepy music (Randy Edelman) sounds like an amalgamation of every thriller made in the past decade.
The film is about a nefarious, 200-year-old secret society called "the Skulls." The movie's pretentious opening text claims that at least 3 of our presidents have been members of such societies, which appear to occur only in Ivy League colleges. (While presidents probably have been members of secret societies, the implication that these societies are quite evil undoubtedly isn't true.)
Exactly how secret is the Skulls? You know the movie is in trouble from the beginning when you learn that everyone on campus seems to know who is a member and that the Skulls even have a huge building where they meet. Just to erase any doubt, the edifice has a big skull on top. So much for secrecy.
Once we get inside the building, it gets worse. The set looks like a gothic dungeon, complete with flaming torches, that appears to be on loan from a Mel Brooks comedy.
As the story opens, we meet Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson). He's a poor townie who is working his way through school. Although he has never flown in a jet, he has a crush on Chloe (Leslie Bibb), whose parents own a private jet. Of course, they will fall in love. His best buddy, Will (Hill Harper), is an investigative reporter for the campus newspaper. Want to venture a guess as to what might happen to Will?
One could write a small book on the plot's implausibilities. When Luke gets a call one night from a stranger, he is told that he has to get to a pay phone in 40 seconds. This eventually leads him to a room with only a glass of some unknown drug and a note instructing him to drink it. Although the glass has a skull on it, he drinks it immediately, assuming that the logo belongs to the skulls and the substance will not kill him.
When he wakes, it's back to the silly sets. He is in a coffin on a large, concrete lily pad, along with a bunch of other swell fellows like himself. Actually, they are all filthy rich and not at all like him, but that's just another of the plot's nonsensical elements.
Luke is partnered with a super-rich kid named Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker), who once would not have given him the time of day. Caleb's father, Litten (Craig T. Nelson), is a judge on a fast-track to the Supreme Court. Litten, the dungeon master, welcomes the new recruits to the den. At his side is a corruptible senator (William Petersen), who is the self-appointed ethics officer of the group. Any guess on the accent of such a senator? Southern, of course.
"We live by the rules; we die by the rules," Litten lectures his young charges. This should be taken as a hint as to what will follow.
In the meantime, the guys have a heck of a good time. Large sums of money are transferred to their bank accounts, new Ferraris and Porsches are given to them and model-quality dates are provided for their amusements. Caleb -- first among equals -- gets a "date" for each arm.
But not all is well in Skulldom. A murder in the sanctum sanctorum causes no end of misery for the young revelers.
It is at this point that the already ridiculous story goes seriously downhill. When someone is found hanging by a rope, his friend pulls down on him, which would kill him if he weren't quite dead. A key tape isn't duplicated when there is plenty of time and equipment to do so and when there is good reason to suspect the tape will be stolen. A character is a drugged-out, drooling vegetable one minute and, the next, is carrying on a lucid discussion of complicated issues. And the list goes on and on, ad nauseam.
Perhaps THE SKULLS was meant to be taken as a parody. Let's hope so.
THE SKULLS runs about 1:40. It is rated PG-13 for violence and language and would be acceptable for teenagers.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews