I never expected this movie to be well-written or have good acting. I knew I was going to be watching something poorly done. It looked like trash, but maybe it would at least be fun. It isn't.Joshua Jackson is invited to join the secret society, The Skulls, based on a real network that supposedly includes many powerful, influential people. The kids who enter into this world as college students will have many doors opened up for them as they enter the workforce and maneuver through life's challenges. Except that Joshua Jackson's character, Lucas, starts to feel morally conflicted about some of the things that happen.I think I was hoping to see the decadent or possible sleazy side of having these advantages. I would have enjoyed a movie in which a decent kid gets overwhelmed with having easy access to money and power, and watch it all spin out of control. Except that this movie keeps everything very tidy and PG. The main plot point is set up when Lucas' best friends infiltrates the secret society to do an expose, and ends up dying accidentally. The cover-up does not sit well with Lucas, and the movie turns into a routine thriller as he tries to make things right with the full power of the corrupt Skull network rising against him. I say that the movie is "routine" because it does things that we have seen in so many other movies in the same genre.So it ended up being pretty boring, never really getting crazy or trashy enough to be memorable. I thought it was a waste of time, even for a teen-themed action thriller. I wouldn't even recommend it for an evening when you had nothing better to do, because there are plenty of movies that are fun and easy to watch. You don't have to subject to yourself to something that offers no pleasure just because you have time to waste.

THE SKULLS deals with an interesting subject but never overcomes a murky script that seems to go nowhere until the final sequences.Two young freshmen are at the centerpiece of the story about a mysterious organization called "The Skulls" that seems to offer rich rewards for joining a secret society. JOSHUA JACKSON and PAUL WALKER are the two young men and CRAIG T. NELSON is Walker's father who wants his wealthy son to make it into the society.The acting is decent enough, especially by Jackson, and Craig T. Nelson is earnest as the overbearing father but the murky plot is a stumbling block all the way through. The sets are handsomely designed and the technical credits are fine but none of the characters are particularly interesting and the viewer becomes uninvolved in a story that lacks sufficient tension to pull the whole thing together.Good try, but having a relatively unknown cast filling all of the roles doesn't help much. As a suspense thriller, could have been so much tighter, so much better.

"The Skulls" qualifies as bone-headed Hardy Boys hokum. This sophomoric suspense thriller about a covert society at an anonymous Ivy League University that grooms handpicked undergraduates as tomorrow's titans lacks both subtlety and suspense. As a Mafia-style fraternal organization, The Skulls remains so hush-hush that its elite members have created their own book of rules, and those rules supersede the rule of law. This clandestine clique rewards their chosen few with fast sports cars, loose willing women, and fist-sized bankrolls. Ultimately, "The Skulls" preaches that neither wealth nor power is worth forfeiting either for your freedom or dismantling your morality.Although he is a financially-strapped, blue-collar orphan that works several jobs to pay his tuition, Lucas McNamara (Joshua Jackson of TV's "Dawson's Creek") finds himself thrust into the limelight when he leads the school's sculling team to its third championship.On the basis of Lucas's superb athletic skills, the Skulls recruit him for their ranks. Suddenly, Lucas thinks he has the world by the tail. Everything looks rosy until the Skulls catch his best friend, Will (Hill Harper of "CSI: New York") an aspiring investigative journalist, snooping in their inner sanctum and murder him. Will's words echo in Lucas's ears: "If it's secret and it's elite, it can't be good." Imagine a synthesis of "The Firm" and "Enemy of the State," and you've got a rough idea what scenarists John "U.S. Marshals" Pogue and director Rob "Daylight" Cohen had in mind. Sadly, "The Skulls" never lives up to its potential. Pogue's muddled screenplay contains more holes than a skull. First, what wealthy, discrete, 200-year old group with major political influence would botch a homicide as horribly as these cretins? Second, how could a society so obsessed with their own secrecy allow an outsider to steal a member's keys and invade their privacy? Nothing in life is perfect, so the filmmakers had to contrive loopholes in the powerful, deadly, and inescapable web woven by the Skulls.Desperately, Lucas appeals to his scummy friends from the wrong side of the tracks, and they help him steal the society's surveillance videotapes. Meanwhile, Lucas' soul mate in the Skulls, Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker of "Into The Blue"), incriminates Lucas for Will's murder. No sooner has Lucas given the cops the tape with the murder on it than it disappears. Things grow even more complicated when the Skulls pack Lucas off to a psychiatric ward where they plan to let him drool to death.Everything in John Pogue's predictable script occurs just too easily. The exception to the rule is the opening boat race where an oar snaps and lucks runs against Lucas's team. Afterward, "The Skulls" sinks fast. An atmospheric initiation scene where the inductees gulp a knock-out potion and they awaken to find themselves emerging from coffins as reborn is more absurd than symbolic. The society brands them on the wrist and gives each an expensive wristwatch to conceal it. Some secret society, huh? In his first starring role, Joshua Jackson—looking like a young Mel Gibson—gives a good account of himself, but "The Skulls" conjures up more boredom than paranoia.

Are there things "wrong" with this movie? Yes. Are they are bad as some of the reviewers I've read? Asbolutely not.The first problem with the movie is it assumes it's audience is too intelligent. Most movies these days leave NOTHING to the imagination or the interpretation. They spell it out perfectly for you so no part of you goes "first he was sitting, then the camera panned to the main character, and when it goes back he was STANDING!" And a scene like makes it's way into web pages as "errors". Because there's *no way* that someone can stand up while they're "off screen" and the camera is on someone else.That's what The Skulls does to you. It makes you think of what's happening off screen. At least 50% of the movie isn't occurring on screen, and that's quite honestly, way too much for the average viewer to comprehend.Things like "pre-acceptance into the law school of your choice". I've seen that "problem" pointed out in many reviewers. What they fail to grasp is idiot skulls trying to rule the world doesn't help the cause. While sure, they could likely produce false papers for a law degree, the point is to ACTUALLY make the men go through school, ACTUALLY become smart. So they can ACTUALLY lead in the future. The point of the movie was this secret society opens doors. It doesn't spoon feed the men.I've heard comments about the "duel being out in the open". It was, on a private island. I've read complaints about how it's a "known" "secret society". And that's apparently too complex a concept to grasp for some. There's A LOT of "known" "secrets". Area 51 for instance in Nevada. It's widely known, yet no one can tell you what ACTUALLY happens there. Sure, 1000 theories... but no truly KNOWN truths. The secret societies in this college are the same. They listed 3 of them. The Snake and Key was one I think, the Wolf and Scroll was another I believe, and yes, The Skulls.I personally liked the movie. It was at least suspenseful. Did it have it's odd plot hole? Sure. But as long as you're brain's fast enough to fill in the blanks that are happening off screen, then it's much more in-depth then a lot of the reviewers I've read give it credit for.