The Skulls

Directed by Rob Cohen, The Skulls follows Joshua Jackson’s Luke McNamara as he’s accepted into the title secret society and slow-but-surely begins to realize that there’s something nefarious going on within its elite walls. Filmmaker Cohen, working from a script by John Pogue, delivers an entirely forgettable (and thoroughly predictable) thriller that nevertheless manages to sustain the viewer’s interest for the duration of its (admittedly overlong) running time, as The Skulls benefits from a brisk pace that’s heightened by a relatively compelling storyline and assortment of engaging performances – with Jackson’s affable turn as the central character matched by an eclectic supporting cast that includes Christopher McDonald, William Petersen, and Craig T. Nelson. The decidedly paint-by-numbers bent of Pogue’s screenplay is, as a result, rarely as problematic as one might’ve feared, although, by that same token, the picture’s progressively ludicrous second half does ensure that the whole thing goes out with a pronounced whimper. (The climactic duel (!) is hardly as enthralling as Pogue has obviously intended, for example.) The final result is a decent-enough, my-first-thriller-type endeavor that generally gets the job done, and it’s difficult, ultimately, not to long for the days when movies like this were a veritable dime a dozen.

**1/2 out of ****