The Skulls (2000)
Starring:  Joshua Jackson, Paul Walker, Craig T. Nelson
Directed by:  Rob Cohen
The look of love:  soul-mates Paul Walker and Joshua Jackson discover that The Skulls aren't all they're cracked up to be.  If you like corny puns like that, you'll love this film. 
<The Film Cricket> So, I finally got around to watching The Skulls.  The trailer looked interesting, but everytime I went to the video store, I was too chicken to take it to the counter and rent it.  Hmm…I want to watch Battlefield Earth too, but I have a similar problem.  If only we wore hats that said "Serious Film Critic" on them.
<The Ladybug> Let's make some.  I have glitter. 
<The Film Cricket> Do you think Ebert would wear one?
<The Ladybug> Nah, but Roeper might.  I wanted to watch this movie to see where Dubya got his start.  Do you think he has a soul-mate [Skull recruits are partnered up as “soul-mates”]?
<The Film Cricket>  Well, you know, Bush did once tell a producer that the quality of Yale really “went downhill since they admitted women.”   So who knows?
<The Ladybug> Okay, so I love Joshua Jackson, but he picks some pretty piss-poor scripts.  A lot of the stuff that went on in this movie didn't even make sense, even by the movie's own internal logic.
<The Film Cricket> I don't know much about secret societies at Ivy League colleges, but there has to be more to them than alumni giving cars, money and library-sized apartments to clean-cut jerks who are good at rowing.
<The Ladybug> It seems the alumni have nothing better to do than sit around and manipulate the pledges' lives.  It's like, uh, you're a senator--go...senate, or something.
<The Film Cricket> Exactly.  Why go to all that trouble?  Why are these senators and big shot lawyers hanging around a campus and being really really nice to college boys?
<The Ladybug> Speaking of which, there were some vaguely homoerotic undertones to this film.  Oh wait, they weren't vague at all.
<The Film Cricket> In the scene where The Fast and the Furious ties "Dawson's Creek"'s bowtie, I could have sworn that The Skulls was taking a homosexual turn. What about the part where they’re locked in the cages, facing one another?  I was surprised they didn't make out, like, "Oh, Caleb, let's kiss and make up."
<The Ladybug> And let me just pause to mock the name "Caleb Mandrake," which is Paul Walker’s character.  What did you call him?  "Bible Root"?  Damn, that would have been cool if the movie was about Pacey's and Caleb's illicit love and the Skulls trying to shut them down.  And Caleb all, "I'll die for my boy!", and Coach all, "I'm so ashamed."
<The Film Cricket> So, the premise is supposed to be that a working class college boy, played by Joshua Jackson, gets accepted into the Skulls, an ultra-exclusive secret society that pays for members' educations and gives them Porshes and money.  But the Skulls aren't all fun and games.  It's an evil secret society.  Well can somebody tell me why the Skulls are so evil?  Do they deal drugs?  Do they murder innocent people?  Do they scam the government out of millions of taxpayer dollars?  No.
<The Ladybug> They just sit around in their "War Room" playing chess.  Seriously, it seems like a case of overcompensating, if you know what I mean.  What did you think of the love interest, Chloe, played by Leslie Bibb?  Pretty lucky that her computerized painting machine senior thesis project is there to foil the bad guys later on, like, I didn't see that coming.  She was kind of hot, though.
<The Film Cricket> She was damned hot, and I can't really say anything bad about her.
<The Ladybug>  But you know what this movie needed?  More sex.  And I'm not talking about those rent-a-hookers used as gifts to the Skull recruits, who, might I add, could have all used some bras and baths to blow the skank off of them.


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the film cricket and the ladybug give this film:
Uno Jesus.  Bad movie, man.  Bad. Movie.