Secret societies, killer provosts abound in `Skulls'
By MIKE McMORROW
Scene Movie Critic
"The Skulls" receives two shamrock halves: one for the fact that it does make one laugh on many occasions (although they're unintentional), and another for the fact that any movie that contains a killer provost deserves at least some credit.
Yes, folks, director Rob Cohen's new film has a character who is the chief academic officer of an Ivy League university but spends more of his time giving ludicrous insane looks rather than lectures. This will be treasured for a long time.
The Skulls is a secret society at an anonymous Ivy League school, but the film does enough to flat out call it Yale (the school's logo is a big "Y"). That makes sense, because the Skulls society is most likely based on the Skulls and Bones society to which George Bush supposedly belonged.
The film frames the story around the character of Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson), a fantastic rower for the crew team. Luke is not rich. He is from New Haven and attends on the basis of his rowing skills.
After a big victory, Luke receives a phone call asking him, "Are you ready to be reborn?" No prizes for guessing that it's the beginning of the Skulls initiation process, which consists of stealing the mascot of another secret society at the university. Soon, Luke is an official member of the Skulls — so he thinks.
This is some club. Each member gets a huge living room and bedroom in a home similar to a frat-house and gets $20,000 automatically deposited into their bank accounts. They also get a car, a girl "who knows everything about you" and connections beyond imagination. In addition, each inductee is paired up with another inductee and the two are declared "soul mates." Luke has the misfortune of being paired with Caleb Mandrake, who happens to be the son of one of the group's elder leaders.
Everything hits the fan, people die and accusations are made. Luke wants out but can't because, of course, they can do anything they want to him.
The movie is so poorly paced, acted and written that it's hard to care even the slightest about any of the plot occurrences or motivations. Never has there been a time when a movie that takes itself so seriously fails so miserably at its attempt to uncover any kind of complexity in its characters.
This is a fundamental problem, but it's worsened by the fact that it moves along so gracelessly in the first place. There is no continuity or smoothness between scenes (which is something that can be used deliberately, but certainly not here), and consequently there is really no mounting suspense. It turns out to be an exercise in unintended parody of everything that can be poorly done in a movie.
The film's actors are really given nothing to do, thanks to the horrid lack of development, but even in their vapid roles the acting here really leaves something to be desired. Paul Walker is wooden as Caleb, who could have at least been a one-sided love-to-hate boor (which would have made the audience dislike him). But people were laughing at his appallingly unsteady delivery and altogether unconvincing style.
Jackson gives no depth to Luke, who could have at least shown some conviction before the obligatory moral-high-grounded ending, which comes off as especially unearned and hokey.
Truth be told, though, I enjoyed Craig T. Nelson's portrayal of Litten Mandrake, the evil and conniving father of Caleb. Nelson accomplishes two things: One, he makes the audience finally react to a character; and two, makes one wish "Coach" was still on the air.
Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate to leave out the killer provost, who by his very nature steals every scene he's in. If the whole movie had been about the killer provost, there might have been something worth watching.
To close a review of "The Skulls" on a serious note is tough, but here is one thought: was there a movie to be made at all here? The plot and the set-up are ludicrous, but it may have worked had the movie been self-aware. Perhaps if the script required more panache from the actors (with the notable exceptions of the killer provost and the evil "Coach" Nelson), it could have worked as, what Roger Ebert terms, a Good Bad Movie: a movie that's aware of its ineptness and relishes in it. Or they could've just given the lead to the killer provost and had the first Oscar-winner for "Best Actor in a Parody."
1 out of 5 shamrocks
All Scene Stories for Thursday, April 6, 2000
