So Simple...Yet Very Complex!

Rating: Null/10 (30 September 2004)

A friend watched this for the first time the other day. I had seen it a few years ago. She was dumbfounded by this film and asked me what it really was about. She asked if it had "a greater purpose."
After I told her, she understood a little better. Here's what I said to her...
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The left hand didn't know what the right was doing as Worth put it. The Cube was something that never should've been built but it was.
Worth says, "There is no conspiracy. Nobody is in charge. It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan."
He also says,"This is an accident, a forgotten, perpetual public works project. You think anybody wants to ask questions? All they want is a clear conscience and a fat paycheck."
I think one of the most important lines in the film is from Rennes (the escape artist) who says, "No more talking. No more guessing. Don't even think about nothing that's not right in front of you. That's the real challenge. You've gotta save yourselves from yourselves."
He couldn't have been more right.
The end of the film and who makes it out was a lesson on social breakdown. The Cube should never have been built but when it was, the people who created it realized what they had done and simply decided to make use of it rather than let it sit unused. They put people in it.
So in a way it doesn't have a greater purpose...but yet it does....in the lessons learned by watching the characters inside of it. The Cube is just a gigantic empty device until you add that human element to it. That's where the real fun begins and that's what makes it interesting.
Quentin (the evil cop) was pretty accurate when he said,
"This place is... remember Scaramanga? The bad guy in "The Man With The Golden Gun?" It's some rich psycho's entertainment."
And in a way he was right. The Cube really doesn't serve any purpose but to provide its creators with a sick form of entertainment.
Cube, above all is a fantastic multi-character study combined with sci-fi elements. One of the reasons I like it is because at it's core, it is very simple...but yet it is also very complex at the same time. Kind of like a Rubik's cube. Sitting on someone's desk collecting dust, a Rubik's cube will simply sit there...it has no purpose. But when a human picks it up and starts turning and twisting it....well you get the idea. I wouldn't be surprised if the Rubik's cube was the inspiration for the writers to write Cube.
Hopefully this helps.