johnlink ranks THE SKULLS (2000)
Guilty pleasure warning! I go into this review not pretending that this movie is particularly great, or that I should even like it at all. But I am a rediculously big Joshua Jackson fan, with both Dawson’s Creek and Fringe ranking in my top ten favorite shows of all time. So, yeah. THE SKULLS!
I watched THE SKULLS (2000) on 1.29.12. It was, oh probably, my tenth or so viewing of this amazing piece of film history.
This movie doesn’t suffer for a lack of trying, or for a lack of vision. The script wants to be very good, and it has some nice beats. A photo being taken early on is assumed to be one thing and turns out to be another. An assupmtion made about a key character turns out to be wrong. The dialogue is sharp, but also a little too cool for its own good, which happened often in the late 90s as screenwriters who grew up on Tarantino tried to get that wittiness into all their scripts.
The acting isn’t bad, and it might actually be some of the best of Paul Walker’s career (which is NOT saying much). Joshua Jackson basically plays Pacey from Dawson’s Creek, but a few years older (at the time). Leslie Bibb is adorable as the love interest. The villains are properly villainy. And there is a nice turn by CSI’s William Petersen as a Senator Skull who is trying to help Josh Jackson, but also looking out for his own interest.
The story involves a secret society at Yale (though Yale is never directly mentioned) recruiting its class, which conveniently only seems to ever have Josh Jackson and his ‘soul-mate’ Paul Walker doing anything. The Skulls are a centuries old order which control everything. They control police, the school, the banks. Heck they can get away with murder. Well, at least until Pacey Witter comes along!
Some of the scenes in this are eye-rolling in their level of unbelievability. But everyone seems to be giving it there all, so they can get away with some of it. The result is a run-of-the-mill suspense flick which I would think was below-average if I didn’t have a man-crush on Joshua Jackson. My wife should be jealous.
SCORES
FILM: 3; MOVIE: 8; ACTING: 4; WRITING: 5
3+8+4+5+0=
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