| Product: |
Cube (DVD) |
| Date: |
05/06/01 (61 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: See review
Disadvantages: See review
Cube is a relatively unknown science fiction film that has gradually developed a cult following since its cinematic release. Made on a relatively low budget, with no big names in the director’s chair, or in the cast, Cube is an intriguing film that absorbs the viewer from start to finish – well almost, anyway.
The story of the film is relatively simple. One by one, a group of strangers awaken to find themselves trapped in strange cubic rooms. Each room contains six exits, each leading to another, almost identical cubic room. The only obvious difference between any of the rooms is the colour of the walls – the same eerie, mathematical patterns cover the walls of all the rooms. Nobody knows where they are, or how they got there, but they all find themselves together in one room. As they become conscious of their surroundings they quickly realise that they are contained within a bizarre - and lethal - maze where every room could possibly kill them. Some of the rooms are booby trapped with some extremely unpleasant surprises, activated by any one of a number of fiendish methods. One of them - an escaped prison convict - quickly ascertains that they need to establish a means of testing whether a room is dangerous or not before they can enter, which they accomplish by throwing one of their boots in and seeing what happens. Employing this method of testing their passage they gradually start to make their way through the maze, uncovering more about the nature of the maze, and about who they all are. As time passes by, and things turn from bad to worse, they quickly realise that it is not only the Cube they need be afraid of…..
I thought that Cube was generally a very engaging film. The film is claustrophobic and tense - rather like the cubic maze itself - and steadily builds up a feeling of desperation as we watch the inhabitants of the maze struggle harder and harder to escape. The inhabitants of the maze appear to be part of some
bizarre social experiment, and just when they seem to be getting somewhere the fiendish Cube throws another obstacle in their path. Whilst the film is generally not an exciting movie, there are no dull moments, as the film dwells entirely on the groups efforts to escape their prison. Like any puzzle, the Cube takes some working out, but there was nothing predictable about the plot developments – I really didn’t know what to expect next.
The strangers are a strange concoction of different characters. There is a black policeman, an office worker, a teenage schoolgirl, a cynical middle-aged woman, a mentally ill young man and a prison inmate. As you may expect, each of the characters has a part to play in the film, but like any true suspense movie nobody is quite what they appear to be. It was something of a relief to see a cast without the usual range of pretty American teenagers, gradually being picked off, and for once there was a refreshing absence of any love interest. None of the actors or actresses were familiar to me, but they all performed well.
Upon examination, it is quite evident that the film had a relatively limited budget to work with. Due to the fact that each room of the Cube was virtually identical, there are few dramatic set pieces, although there are occasional more grandiose scenes that hint at the scale of the bizarre maze. Special effects were also few and far between, reserved largely for a few grisly moments that may have you jumping out of your skin. Nonetheless, I thought that the film held together very well, and certainly never looked cheap or flimsy.
Whilst the story of the film may be relatively simple, I am not sure that the same could be said of the point of the whole thing. I was left feeling a little bit cheated with a lot more questions than I had answers. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I don’t expect to have everything spelt out to me. The problem was, I felt that the
film-maker was definitely trying to convey a deeper meaning to the whole thing, which ultimately never came out. I rather deduced that the Cube was presented as a microcosmic version of the real world, with various allusions to the way in which human beings operate. Unfortunately, this plot element was rather overshadowed by the eventual thriller type plot that the film developed into.
This is probably my main criticism of the film. Where it seemed to promise something deeper and more thought-provoking, it ultimately descended into a standard thriller which, although competent enough, was something of a disappointment. I rather expected to see more surprises and discoveries around the Cube, and thought that the maze could have been developed into something much more – once a couple of the rooms have shown their “less friendly” side, the Cube becomes little more than a backdrop to the whole film. That aside, there are some moments of real tension, including a sequence where the party have to cross a room in complete silence – the slightest noise could trigger a booby-trap.
Cube is certainly worth watching – I found that the Director’s commentary added a bit more meat to the bones, but none of the other additional features on the DVD were particularly interesting. I am in two minds as to whether a blockbuster budget would have lifted the movie, or been it’s undoing, but I would recommend fans of this genre to go and take a look.
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