SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

marieltrokan An illogical oppression which is inspiring is a logical equality which isn't inspiringA logical equality that's oppressive is an oppressive equality that's oppressiveAn oppressive equality is an oppressive symmetryAn oppressive symmetry is an oppressive imageAn oppressive image is a free non-imageA free non-image is the non-appearance of freedomThe non-appearance of freedom is visual absence of freedomThe visual absence of freedom is a free visual absenceA free visual absence is an oppressed visual presenceVisual presence is visual visualVisual visual is visual oppressionVisual oppression is external oppressionExternal oppression is self-freedomOppressed self-freedom is deceptive self-freedomA deceptive deceptive self-freedom is a true self-freedomA true self-freedom is a deceptive external oppressionA deceptive external oppression is a deceptive external deceptionExternal deception is a lie of antiThe lie of anti is a lieLie of anti is truth of no antiTruth of no anti is antiNo anti is anti is anti anti is antiTruth is that anti is anti antiTruth is that collision is anti collisionTruth is that anti-collision is collisionCollision collision is identical collisionTruth is that collision is clash of identicalCollision is peace of differencePeace is difference of differencePeace is difference is differencePeace is identity of differencePeace is different identityPeace is same non-identityPeace is non-identity that's samePeace is non-non that's non-nonPeace is when not being nothing is the same identityNot being nothing is being somethingBeing something is being beingBeing being is not original beingPeace is when everything in the universe is not the original being

SnoopyStyle Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson) is a working class college student struggling to come up with the tuition to pay for Harvard Law. He's an elite rower and hopes to be pick by The Skulls who supposedly pay for tuition. He's in love with Chloe (Leslie Bibb) but reluctantly to show it because of her family wealth. He gets picked by the Skulls and steal a rival mascot with Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker) as a test. They are put together as "soulmates". His membership in the Skulls causes a split with his friend Will. Caleb's father Litten (Craig T. Nelson) is the chair of The Skulls. Senator Ames Levritt (William Petersen) is a member. Will steals Caleb's key and breaks into The Skulls. Caleb catches Will. Later Luke finds Will dead after a supposed suicide. Detective Sparrow (Steve Harris) investigates.Will's reaction to Luke after he got into The Skulls needs to be explained better right from the beginning or else it feels too abrupt. It's not like Luke didn't explain why he needs the Skulls. That scene almost destroys this movie single-handedly with the overacting. Luke is a much more compelling character if he's concentrated on the tuition. When he seems to be too greedy, he loses that rooting interest. Then it just gets too much and too ridiculous. It is an excessive story about excess.

Adam Foidart The biggest problem with "The Skulls" is that it's un-memorable. It isn't terrible but doesn't offer any surprises or thrills either. Basically it's about a three best friends (Joshua Jackson as Luke, Leslie Bibb as Chloe and Hill Harper as Will) who attend college together. Everything is fine and dandy until Luke gets invited to join a secret society on campus known as The Skulls. He makes new friends (most prominently Paul Walker as Caleb) and doesn't want anything to do with his old ones and if that wasn't bad enough, the secret society turns out to be pretty sinister.The plot starts off promising, with Joshua Jackson and Paul Walker's characters bonding (due to their new connection in the Skulls) coming in and disturbing the friendship that is set up between the likable characters in the introduction. From then on the film doesn't really take any chances and goes for the easy route, with standard evil secret society stuff, a predictable murder mystery and a shoehorned love story. Some of the plot points are ridiculous and contrived; like vaults of incriminating security tapes (despite a clearly corrupt leadership that readily disposes of damning evidence), a plot to send a whistle blower to an insane asylum (instead of simply killing him when we've seen that the Skulls have no qualms about killing people) and a problem that in the 21st century could easily be solved in a few minutes (using news media or the internet). For younger, less discriminating audiences this might be entertaining but if you've ever seen any movie with a secret society or cult, you've seen this film before and probably better. (On DVD, November 18, 2012)

Neil Doyle 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.