Synopsis
Seven strangers wake up to find that they are in a cube shaped room. None of them know how they got there or why. then they realise that each wall houses a door to another room...
Review
Remember when Saw came out and everyone was like "oh the set-up's like so original! Imagine if that happened to you. I mean it could. You could be taken and locked in a room without knowing how you got there by a sicko and forced to do terrible things to try and escape. I'm getting another lock for my window", you know stuff like that. Well, yes, the set-up is a good one. Shamefully the guys who made Saw had clearly just watched the older (by seven years) Cube. The difference being that instead of two guys, a grotty, shit-encrusted warehouse and a couple of hacksaws what we have here is a cube-shaped room, surrounded by interlocking identical rooms. You see it's a big maze that the characters have to try and escape from. Oh and lots of the rooms have deadly booby traps in them.
Cube is a masterpiece of low-budget, high-concept film making. The premise sets it up to be an effects-ridden sci-fi movie, but instead the viewer is presented by a character-driven thriller that just so happens to be set where it is. The cube shaped rooms not only present a sterility that quickly provoke madness, but also serve as a money saving device. The entire film's shot on one set with the lights shining through the pattern on the walls changing. Understandably things become claustrophobic and tense incredibly quickly as the characters begin to irritate one-another.
In fact one of Cube's most brilliant features is messing with your pre-conceptions, such as what type of movie you're about to see. Witness the turns in the characters, Leaven quickly becomes a little bitch, Holloway a paranoid freak and the treatment of Rennes' revelation that he can probably lead them out thanks to his past is almost hilarious. Then there is Quentin, set up as a family man and cop, who better to be the hero that leads them through the maze, and Worth who claims to have nothing to live for and is clearly hiding something. These two are the most interesting characters, and the tension that builds between the two is essentially the lynchpin of the entire movie.
Shamefully with these two being so integral Cube's biggest minus has to be brought up, one that often afflicts low-budget movies. Some of the acting is far from stellar, and in particular Maurice Dean Wint who plays Quentin is hammy in the extreme. As I said, this thing often happens in otherwise great low-budget fair, but shamefully it may be something that renders the film non-enjoyable. Thankfully Davis Hewlett who plays Worth is pretty damn good.
If you can forgive the occasional amateur dramatics what you will find is an incredibly tense film, both brilliant in its set-up and execution. Some of the obstacles the characters have to overcome, and that refers to the trapped rooms as much as the internal strife, are fantastically thought out. the real reason that I'm trying not to say too much about what happens in Cube is that it relies so much on mystery to build its tension, witness the explanation for why they are there. To reveal too much really would spoil it for those who haven't seen it. But it really is a film that you should see. In a time when shows like Big Brother lock people in a house and force them to perform for us Cube becomes quite pertinent. It explores a darkness present within us all, something that can reveal itself when we become trapped, and that may be the scariest thing about Cube.
And all this without a Danny Glover or a ridiculous clown puppet on a tricycle in sight. the makers of Cube - geniuses.
Top 100, Where And Why
Cube is flawed, the autistic guy being good at maths anyone? It also suffers a bit on multiple viewings thanks to the mystery being partly stripped. But it remains a brilliant idea that is very well executed on the budget that was available. It also is a lot more influential thanks to the post-Saw wave we've seen than it gets credit for. Personally I'm going to put it in the number 3 slot.
1. The Hudsucker Proxy
2. Grosse Pointe Blank
3. Cube
4. White men Can't Jump
5. Galaxy Quest
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