Excellent but underrated film

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Another film that just makes you more afraid and non trusting of secret societies, makes you wonder if they will ever make a movie that praises these groups. Well, we have The Skulls which I watched today and I have to say that I wasn't so sure to trust this movie. We've seen the whole "don't trust anybody" plot a million times before. Joshua Jackson was so popular with his Dawson's Creek era and I wondered why they would put him in a lead role, pretty much for the money. But I gave the movie a fair chance and wasn't too disappointed. It's very predictable and has some flaws to it, but overall it does provide entertainment. The story has been done to death, but beggars can't be choosers in this Hollywood.Luke McNamara is a college student with aspirations to eventually become a lawyer. He attends Yale along with his girlfriend Chloe and his best friend Will. Luke's friendships hit the rocks when he is invited to join a secret society known as "The Skulls." As a member of the Skulls, Luke is partnered with Caleb, and the two quickly strike up a friendship. Eventually Will, who has been conducting research on the Skulls for some time, discovers their secret ritual room. Will gets caught in the ritual room by Caleb and in the ensuing struggle he falls and is knocked unconscious. Caleb is ordered to leave the room by his father, after which one of Litten's cronies breaks Will's neck. The skulls manage to move the body and make it look like Will committed suicide in his dorm room. But Luke knows there's more to the story than it looks.The acting is alright; for the most part Jackson does a decent job in the leading role. But they could have had someone who was a bit stronger considering that every line that Jackson said in the end was made for the trailer pretty much. Paul Walker, again, more used because he was just the hottie of the time, he was OK. No major stand out performances, Craig T. Nelson is the most cartoon villain I've seen in a while. The only thing that was missing was the lightening in the background as he's laughing manically at the Skulls meetings . But the film works on the story pretty well, it keeps the tension, even though there are unbelievable moments. I seriously love how this secret group is possibly going to be apart of the CIA or FBI one day, part of the government top secret, yet doesn't realize that when they murder someone, they should check the room for security cameras. But the scares are captured with Joshua not being able to go to anyone to find help for his room mate's murder. It's hard to say if I would recommend this film, it's just alright and average. I think there are some good moments and bad one's, it's certainly flawed and made for the teens, but I think the adults could find something good from the story. It just needed a little more work. 5/10

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.

There are no so many films made about secret societies.So from that yardstick the filming of "The Skulls" could have been hailed as a watershed event.However this was not to be as this film suffers from too many narrative inaccuracies.It appears that this film's team has not done its homework properly.The director and screen writer did not bother to concentrate on the single most important theme of the film : Secret Socities.No one can doubt that ample academic research was done before even the commencement of the actual filming.Instead of an overall development of this theme unsuspecting viewers were bombarded with an erratic array of out of topic themes like murder,blossoming of love,realization of personal guilt etc.The film appears as a distressed soul due to poor acting.Should any one wants to know what led a young boy to join a secret society ? Find out by watching The Skulls-a film that will not please you. In any case, I am sure that it did not please me even for its first thirty minutes.