The Skulls

(Universal)

This ludicrous exercise in half-baked paranoia from Rob Cohen should have been called The Numbskulls. Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson) is an ambitious blue-collar student at an Ivy League school whose dream is law school. To that end, he seeks admittance to the Skulls, an elite, secret fraternity that apparently rules the world and pays for its members' higher education. After stealing a weathervane, Luke and blue-blood scion Caleb Mandrake (Paul Walker) are admitted, but then Luke's nosy roommate is found hanging from a pipe, his snooty girlfriend won't talk to him, and a police detective is giving him the third degree. Cohen tries to tart up this drivel with arty camerawork and editing, but that only underscores the portentous idiocy.