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Cube
Canada 1997
produced by
Mehra Meh, Betty Orr, Colin Brunton (executive) for The Feature Film Project, Cube Libre, Odeon Films, Viacom, Ontario Film Development Corporation, Téléfilm Canada, Harold Greenberg Fund
directed by Vincenzo Natali
starring Nicole de Boer, David Hewlett, Maurice Dean Wint, Nicky Guadagni, Andrew Miller, Wayne Robson, Julian Richings
written by André Bijelic, Vincenzo Natali, Graeme Manson, music by Mark Korven
Cube
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Without knowing how they got there, six strangers - young math genius
Leaven (Nicole de Boer), architect Worth (Daniel Hewlett), cop Quentin
(Maurice Dean Wint), psychiatrist and conspiracy theorist Holloway (Nicky
Guadagni), mentally challenged Kazan (Andrew Miller) and escape artist
Rennes (Wayne Robson) - find themselves inside a cube that contains
nothing else but an exit on each side (including floor and ceiling), all
leading to other almost identical cubes. And since this procession of
cubes can't go on forever, it's more than likely that passing through them
in one direction long enough will eventually lead to the outside. Thing
is, some of the identical cubes are actually death traps. Now Rennes, used
to escaping from tight spots, thinks he knows all the angles here and
takes lead in their treck to freedom - and ironically he's the first to
die. Then Leaven has an idea, since all the cubes are numbered at their
entry points, the numbers will tell them which rooms are booby-trapped. So
she does the numbers, Quentin makes himself leader of the bunch, Holloway
is the one who complains a lot, Kazan doesn't do much because he's needed
only later in the plot, and Worth has a dark secret, that being that he
has designed the outer hull of the complex they're in. After Quentin is
injured in a room that's supposed to be booby-trap free, Leaven figures
the numbers aren't merely telling them whether or not the rooms are safe,
they're actually coordinates. Following this theory they get to the outer
cubes, but there's a gap to the actual exit. Holloway tries to make it
over with the help of the others, but then Quentin lets her drop into the
bottomless pit between cubes and outer hull out of spite. After that he
goes pretty much berserk, but the others can escape him. Leaven now
figures that the cubes are moving, and eventually they'll find the bridge
to the exit, but it's too hard for her to calculate - but fortunately
Kazan is really good with numbers (told you we'd need him) and they soon
make it to the bridge, and are almost out when Quentin, without having
done any calculations, manages to catch up with them, and after a fight to
the death, only Kazan manages to escape. Now the concept of
this film is a commendable one, throw a bunch of people from various walks
of life into a surreal situation that can be solved by logic though, and
let the story develop as a character piece. Unfortunately, as promising as
Cube starts, ultimately it doesn't live up to its own hype,
basically because while the idea with the cubes is really cool, it falls
flat when creating characters and only comes up with clichés, and
especially when it comes to singling out a clear villain, this really
takes from the urgency of the basic narrative and becomes a generic action
piece with an especially silly ending. Also of course, the logic the
characters use to make their way out isn't really comprehensible and seems
very far fetched. On the plus side though, this movie's really
well-executed, and despite its cardboard characters offers penty of
suspense, so it's an ok watch - just nowhere near what could have been
done with the concept ...
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