Writer(s): Natali, André Bijelic, and Graeme Manson
Starring: Nicole de Boer, David Hewlett, Maurice Dean Wint, and Nicky Guadagni
I saw my first trailer for Cube preceding another movie I was watching way back in the days of VHS. It always looked interesting to me, but became one of those movies that I kept putting off for some reason or another, until I just kind of forgot all about it. Upon re-stumbling on it just the other day, I made sure that wouldn't happen again, and made immediate plans to sit down and watch it.
I don't know how this possibly happened, considering I physically watched the trailer numerous times, but I was always under the impression that this was a foreign film. There's just something about its minimalistic plot that suggests something more subtle than the general in-your-face attitude of most Hollywood features, with the entirety of its story taking place within the confines of several shifting rooms, each one 14' x 14'. Visual effects are kept to a minimum (a good thing, considering they have the appearance of old computer game cutscenes), the violence is restrained, and it places its focus on the characters themselves, rather than the situation they find themselves in—in other words, it's the antithesis of the American film (I guess technically it is a “foreign” film, having been shot in Canada; it played theatrically at just 16 screens nationwide).
Bizarre setting aside, the skeleton of Cube's story is pretty familiar stuff: Five complete strangers awaken to find themselves trapped inside the mysterious box, with no memories of who abducted them, or how they got there. As an interesting aside, all of the characters are named after prisons: There's Quentin, the rough-and-tumble “leader” who is a cop; Leaven, a young nerdy college girl; Holloway, a middle-aged female doctor; Rennes, an arrogant escape artist that has broken out of several prisons; and Worth, a suicidal man with no immediately-obvious talents.
Eventually, they deduce that they are trapped in one large cube, that is 26 rooms across, and a whopping 17,576 rooms total. So getting out is just a matter of finding the proper route through a maze, right? Well, of course it wouldn't be that easy: some of the rooms are booby-trapped in various ways that mean instant death for those that blindly wander in, such as motion sensors that activate metal grids capable of slicing through bone, or electrochemical sensors that can detect body heat—that second type they find out the hard way, when Rennes jumps into a room and is sprayed in the face with acid. That's not a good look.
Gradually, it becomes apparent that each of them are there to serve a specific purpose. Quentin, being the authority figure, is a natural born leader capable of keeping his cool under pressure; Leaven is a mathematical wizard, who discovers the secret to the numerical “codes” that label each room; Worth is an architect who was commissioned to build the cube's outer shell, unaware of the horrors they planned to fill it with; and Holloway...well she's best suited to take care of a surprise sixth visitor: mentally-handicapped Kazan, whom most of the others see as little more than a hassle.
As the story gradually starts to reveal itself in layers, it also reveals just how unimaginative it really is. All of them think the others are against them, and are certain that one of them knows more than they are letting on. Paranoia is a natural thought process that everyone goes through at one point or another, and it would certainly manifest itself in a room full of complete strangers stuck in a foreign...cube. But the acting does nothing to further the illusion of realism; nor does the writing, which sticks to pretty standard formulas, refusing to dig any deeper into the individual plights of each character. One character does turn out to be a bad guy, but his true nature is revealed early on with an evil look that comes out of nowhere, along with ominous musical accompaniment that nudges us to acknowledge it...in other words, there are no unforeseen twists, and once the coolness of the idea wears off, so does its grip.
That being said, I have a soft spot for low budget films, where filmmakers often have to find creative solutions, and Cube is almost a masterpiece in budget-cutting simplicity. The entire film was shot in the same 14' x 14' space, with only the backgrounds changing: different colored wall panels give the illusion of shooting in several different individual cubes. A separate half-set was also designed for scenes that take place in the short “hallways” between rooms. The door latches that open each cube was also made out of materials found in any hardware store. That none of these things are noticeable is a pretty impressive technical achievement in and of itself, and while the digital effects are pretty dated, their infrequent use doesn't do much damage.
Despite its growing appeal, Cube is a surprisingly formulaic mess that is helped along by some inventive visual tricks and clear talent from director and co-writer Vincenzo Natali (who sounds like he should be running an Italian eatery instead). But it slowly becomes apparent that the cube is the only interesting idea in the entire film, and once the intrigue of that wears off—and it will wear off—it's nothing more than a straightforward character study about characters that just aren't interesting enough to study in the first place.
RATING: 4.5/10
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