Cube

Rating:
Summary: Had me hiding under the covers!
Review: Watched the movie last night, and let me tell you, it's been a long time since I've felt the way I did last night right before going to bed: I didn't want to close my eyes for fear of all the images and ideas swirling through my head from seeing this movie! It scared the living daylights out of me (meanwhile, my boyfriend nonchalantly flicked out the lights and dropped right to sleep). It tapped into a lot of fears I've had about society, i.e., abusive cops, claustrophobia, getting stuck in such a weird situation and having to rely on others to get you out, Big Brother, kidnapping, etc.

At first I felt all right dismissing the movie because of the overacting, especially by the Quentin and Holloway characters (Worth was the best!) and the super-obvious metaphors (does Worth have any worth? if somebody created the cube [the earth], there has to be a reason people are placed in it, etc.), but then towards the end I found myself unable to stop thinking about the characters' situation as a whole.

Acting sucked, but the movie was definitely suspenseful!

Rating:
Summary: INTENSE
Review: This extremely original thriller/Sci Fi is one of the most underrated films of the nineties. It recieved a limited showing in only a select few cinemas in the UK which was a real loss for the movie lover. It's probably because this film is so different that the critics and "those who be" generally didn't appreciate it. With the basic premise of the movie being that a group of people wake up to find they are trapped in a giant cube structure formed from many smaller cubes with no idea of how they got there or why they are there. You follow the characters in their attempts to solve the riddle of the cube in order to escape. The movie has a very claustrophobic feel, and is quite unsettling. And you become increasingly frustrated as the helpless victims begin to argue and fight with one another. The movie gives an interesting insight into human psychology and the various ways we act under pressure. This is an intense movie which leaves you confused and disturbed which is actually part of its brilliance. Unlike your typical Hollywood film where all loose ends are tied up neatly at the end (like a Scooby Doo mystery) this film wants to haunt you and leave you to make your own conclusions. And that's what I suggest you do.

Rating:
Summary: you know, i wish i could have been in this film...
Review: ...so i could have put all of these pathetic morons out of their misery (as well as my own misery).

as many have said before, this film has a sort of twilight zone feel to it, and indeed if it had been on some late-night television program for, say, half-an-hour i could have swallowed the terrible acting, low budget and single set. but as it is a film, you'd think they could rise above the usual schlocky acting that one might find in a high school acting class. there were so many times when an actor or actress would deliver a line with so much melodrama i couldn't help but roll my eyes. on second thought, i have seen better actors in high school plays... i wonder if all of these people were just friends of the crew (or part of the crew themselves).

the premise is okay but it really drags. especially when i think most people could factor prime numbers faster than the math genius. if this film is on television, go ahead and watch if you've nothing better to do. but don't bother renting it... they may get it into their minds to make cube 3.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I found this film to be riveting, suspenseful, and extremely disturbing. The main reason I felt like reviewing it is to respond to some earlier reviews that claim that this film is pointless because it leaves too many questions unanswered. This movie actually reminded me quite a bit of 20th century French theatre. I am especially reminded of Sartre's No Exit, which was a play about a couple of strangers who end up in hell and realize that they must deal with an eternity together. Mix that with a little Beckett and a lot of Kafka (esp. the Trial), and a little post-Cold War dread, and you have this film. Naturally, there are some flaws, which have been pointed out: second-rate acting, and third-rate characterizations (as if each person was a simple cliche). Those are major complaints in a film this bleak. Nevertheless, I thought the film was an excellent evocation of the absurdity of life, and I was very pleased that there was no "answer" at the end of it. Frankly, there's enough blatently obvious cinema out there to appease any taste, but Cube really strikes to the existential core. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: an allegory of society
Review: I've read most of the reviews here and, with all due respect, I think many of them miss the point. For the time being, forget about the technicalities: about whether a monstrous, complicated structure could ever be built, about the physics of the operation, about the characters, et. al....suspend your disbelief.

Speaking of characters: there is no character development. But this is done deliberately. These aren't single people being represented here. The characters aren't meant to be believable. Or even real. No one in their right mind, if they woke up to find themselves stuck in a cube armed with lethal traps, would behave as irrationally as they do. So assume this allegory:

Let the cube represent a system, created by man. Call it "civilization" or "society" or whatever you want, but I'll refer to it as the "system". Like them, we are all trapped in this system today, this post-modern rat race full of glass and steel and concrete and plastic. I'm willing to wager everyone's ultimate dream is to escape it, too. The 6 people in the movie represent, as best as can be explained, the 6 social groups in the system:

1) The strong, military, authority type, used to getting his own way and controlling others in the system for his own benefit, adhering to the practise of "might makes right".

2) The intelligent, analytical scholar type; understands the logic of the system but not much else; kinda has a silent "don't rock the boat" mentality to her, which is why she is easily swayed to do the bidding of others.

3) The paranoid, suspicious clinician type, who constantly worries about the condition of others, and has a burning desire to warn everyone of what she perceives as harmful elements in the system.

4) The apathetic, intellectual type, who probably knows more about the system and how it works than anyone else but is reluctant to tell anyone because he doesn't see what good it will bring.

5) The naive, "ignorant bliss" type, in the form of an autistic savant, uncaringly obeying the system's rules and having no hangups at all about it or how it functions or why its even there.

6) The rebellious, criminal loner type, out to defy, subvert, and beat the system on its own terms, without help from anyone else.

It is interesting to note that the criminal was the only one killed by the system itself (the fellow at the beginning doesn't count. That was just a prologue to explain to the audience how the cube works). This is appropriate, since he was the only one trying to defeat the system, rather than work with it. All the other characters end up killing each other, save for the autistic, who didn't care either way whether he escaped the cube or not, who was granted freedom (or whatever the hell that was at the end).

A great allegory of life, I found. Its almost as if the movie was saying that its not the system's fault. Yes, the system was built by man, but by man collectively, not by any single man (remember the line: "There is noone at the top. Big Brother is not watching you."). The system, this movie is trying to say, is not evil. The system can't be evil. It's not really anything. It just IS.

Men often do evil things through the system--but that doesn't make the system evil. People often blame the system when they should really be blaming themselves. Because in a system such as this one, the most lethal traps aren't the ones hiding in the cube, but rather the people you're stuck in the cube with.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting idea let down by abysmal acting
Review: It bothers me that so many mainstream films these days are remakes, but I really hope that someone decides to redo Cube sometime soon. The basic concept is very interesting, the plot unfolds at a reasonable pace (i.e. not getting bogged down in how the characters got there in the first place, but not progressing too fast to lose the suspense), the camerawork does justice to the claustrophobic setting - but the acting was just AWFUL!

In spite of this, the film is well worth seeing once, ideally with many other people - you'll be sure to get some very different interpretations as to what it was all about.

Rating:
Summary: Relentless gripping and weirdly compelling
Review: Six people wake up one day and find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of cubical rooms equipped with deadly traps. They discover that each one of them possesses a skill that will enable them to overcome the dangers of this weird maze.

Yes, it sounds cheesy, and yes it's teeming with clichés. The opening scenes of the film don't exactly do a good job allaying fears that this movie will seriously suck, with some rotten dialogue and overwrought acting (the latter may be attributable to the fact that we are not familiar with these actors and therefore less forgiving in regards to their shortcomings). However, the premise of the movie alone should be enough to hook you and give you the patience to stick with it. If you do, you'll be happy after the film's 90 minute length has passed.

The movie quickly goes through a weird change, with interpersonal character reactions becoming more realistic, dialogue becoming more believable, and the tension increasing considerably. As the characters navigate the deadly construction, tension mounts as everyone's true nature is revealed. (Naturally, a situation like this will bring out the best -- and worst -- in anybody). The emphatic acting succeeds in garnering the viewer's utmost interest, almost as if he is the seventh member of the imprisoned party. When a trap is avoided, one feels a profound sense of gladness and relief. When the characters come to a point of desperation, the viewer naturally responds with a similar sense of despondency. At times the plot seems predictable, but there are enough unexpected twists to keep one guessing. Emotionally charged moments of character interaction match the breathless intensity of the trap scenes, which is very impressive.

The story line isn't too concerned with how the characters got there, or why. This is a tasteful decision, as I think too many explanations would have diluted the sense of intensity and the striking drama. Technically, the movie is also very well done. The set design is imposingly impressive in an almost creepy manner, with camera angles providing a good sense of claustrophobia.

I've heard several very negative reviews for this movie, and I have to wonder weather or not we watched the same film. Either way, this movie is a masterpiece of suspense and character interaction.

Rating:
Summary: Premise: A+; execution: B+/A-
Review: What a great concept. A handful of people awaken to find themselves trapped inside a bunch of cubical rooms, connected by doors in each of the six faces. They have no idea where they are or how to get out, but since they have no food or water, they need to find out fairly quickly. But some of the rooms contain deadly booby-traps, and nobody knows how to tell which ones they are. Turns out all the rooms form one giant cube; nobody knows exactly why anyone wanted to construct such a complicated, useless, and potentially deadly piece of machinery -- let alone why anybody would deliberately put _people_ in it . . .

This premise would have been at home on the old 'Twilight Zone' series (or even on the original 'Star Trek', with the trapped parties being Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and 'Crewman Green'). And ya don't gotta be Kafka to smell the allegory; at any rate, if _your_ life has never felt like this, you probably won't like the movie.

The execution is very good too. Obviously a film like this requires a small ensemble cast and a script that manages to keep things interesting for an hour and a half even though all the 'action' takes place inside a series of practically identical cubical rooms. It has both. I won't spoil anything here, but there are some genuinely suspenseful moments and there's a lot of excruciating _psychological_ tension. (And not just from claustrophobia.)

I'm knocking off a star just because I just don't think the characters quite gel. They're interesting enough, but they're neither sufficiently complex to keep me fully engaged with them nor sufficiently 'archetypal' to support the allegory. In some respects their characterization occasionally seems inconsistent.

Very cool movie, though, and the slightly weak characterization isn't much of a drawback. It's not at all a 'hopeful' film and the ending won't make you gasp with moral relief; nor will all that many of your questions get answered. But if (like me) you enjoy that sort of movie, you'll especially enjoy this one.

Rating:
Summary: Stays in your mind after you see it.
Review: I guess this is either one of those, you love it or hate it movies, and I really liked it. Yes the acting was a little off in the beginning, but it caught up soon, and I was engrossed in this cube world, of empty rooms,or deadly boobie traps.

This being the first Cube movie, had more of a rustic, organic feel to it, the rooms were either red, blue,green or yellowish, with etched walls. The few people stuck in them had a hard time not fighting with hech other in order not to go mad and get out alive. It seems that it's usually human nature to start fighting and getting psycho with others, when trapped in a situation, rather than calmly trying to think their way out of the situation.

This is a far out there survival story, they arent lost in the woods, but in some colossal game/trap. Great movie to keep you glued to your couch for an afternoon.

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent science fiction at its best!
Review: Cube, a low budget Canadian flim, is a masterwork that shows it isn't necessary for a production to have millions of CGI effects to produce an atmospheric and effective movie. The movie focuses on the interactions of six strangers who find themselves trapped in a series of cubes as they attempt to find a way out. Along the way they dodge a number of life threatening traps. All the while the characters interactions grow more paranoid and distrusting of each other until they conflict breaks out. The dialogue ranges from the outlandish to the sublimely bitting, in particular Worth's commentary on the possible reason for Cube. The ending is a downbeat but suits the tone of the movie. The acting is good and whilst the characters are to some extent ciphers the situation that they find themselves in doesn't really need more then the archetypical characters that we get. Of the cast Nicole De Boer and David Hawlett are the standouts and get the best lines and growth. What does it all mean? Part of the appeal of the movie is that it doesn't give you any easy answers; instead it functions as sociological Rorschach test, is it a critique of the mechanistic nature of society today? An allegorical, cautionary tale on the need for humanity to come together to progress? A tale of moving from purgatory to heaven? In the end the movie allows all these interpretations and more. Ultimately this is a not a movie that is easy to watch or like but if you do stick with it then it can reward you with a film that is a brutal commentary on society.