Cube (1997)

Director: Vincenzo Natali

Starring: Nicole de Boar, Nicky Guadagni

Run Time: 90 mins

Certificate: 15

 

Plot Outline: A group of people wake up to find they are imprisoned inside a large maze of cubed rooms with a door on each side leading to another room. Some contain deadly traps such as acid sprays and razor sharp invisible wire cages. Others are free from traps. The group of people must work together to try and get out. But each new room poses a new challenge and fear and paranoia soon threaten to split the group up.

The Review: A very original and unique film, Cube seems like one of those films which has a great concept but doesn't totally live up to it's potential. Don't get me wrong, the film is still good but there's some lacking from it which would have propelled it to the 5 star mark in my eyes. The film gets straight into the thick of things by unleashing the characters inside the cube - no explanations, they're just there. The cube isn't given much background nor does it need any - all you need to know is that this place is deadly and the characters just want to get out, not sit and figure out who built it and why they're there. The cube itself is an amazing design because it's so simple. It's just the same set used over and over again, maybe with green lighting instead of red. It's highly claustrophobic considering the 90s minutes of the film is spent in it. Some of them contain traps as we're shown pretty early in the film in graphic detail. Once we know the traps are there, they take a backseat to the characters and their petty bickering. It's not bad but I certainly don't want to see a group of characters sat in a small room squabbling over why they are they, how they are going to escape, etc. for 90 minutes. It helps the believability of the film to have a cast of little known Canadian actors, the most famous of whom being Nicole de Boer who went on to play a role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine after her performance here. The maths concept of the film is also a little baffling at times as the group realise that their way out is to solve it mathematically. This leads to all sort of confusion from the script (I was always an English guy at school, not maths). It also gets messy towards the end as a couple of the group are killed off in quick succession and all manner of backstabbing happens. It just seemed a bit rushed towards the end, as if they ran out of ideas to keep the film going.