The Skulls II (2002)

“There’s always a bigger Kahuna.”

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I can always tell when a movie is really missing the mark for my favourite teenager Miss_Tree and I when we start making up new dialogue and brainstorming more interesting plot points.

The Skulls II was such a movie. In this case, our bored extrapolations included a man-eating red motorbike, and former president George W. Bush coming out at the end and killing everyone with a hammer.

This all may make sense to you in a minute.

The Skulls II is a direct-to-video sequel to The Skulls that starred Joshua Jackson (One Week). Skulls II is part of a trilogy, loosely based I assume, on the real-life secret society out of Yale University called the Skull and Bones.

The Skulls trilogy centres its action on this well-funded boys treehouse club where new recruits are buried alive, branded with secret symbols and stuff.

Then they all drink beer.

If you are good in the club, you get a shiny red motorcycle and an expensive watch. If you are bad, they’ll get your girlfriend to say rotten stuff about you to the police and generally, systematically wreck up your life.

I read somewhere that George W. Bush and his father were members of Skull and Bones. Apparently these fraternities help folks along through life, buoying up the recruits, giving them access to fortune, power and privilege that they couldn’t achieve themselves.

Now George W. Bush makes a bit more sense. …No, maybe not.

Shot at the University of Toronto, The Skulls II stars Robin Dunne as Ryan Sommers, an ethical preppy who is a bit ambivalent about his Skulls pals. If there’s believability to be found in this movie – it is thanks to Dunne. Sure there’s fancy tuxedos, capacious credit cards, and the ladies love the Skulls, but Ryan draws the line at throwing a blonde co-ed off of a roof.

Directed by Joe Chappelle (Fringe), it is competently-made piece of direct-to-video filler. I guess I’m not really interested stories about privileged boys and their ridiculous customs. They make me sleepy.

Nicely shot, the pedestrian plot chugs along at a mostly livable pace, with direct-to-video grade thrills, the film gave us an excuse to see Toronto. And it is always nice to see Toronto, even if it is dressed up to be an American ivy league university filled to the brim with alpha male jerks.

Now if they only included Miss_Tree’s blood-thirsty bike that destroys all humans, it would have been box office.

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99 minutes

Rated R for brief nudity (mostly side boobs)