Fun thriller full of unique ideas

Rating: Null/10 (2 August 2002)

I came upon this film while reading about it on the net, and hearing all the praise about it, and acknowledging its independent nature, I had to check it out. I was really entertained by it, as most who have seen it were, but it probably isn't for the faint of heart. The hapless victims of "the cube" get relentlessly ambushed by the giant device's many booby traps, and not all of them make it. The ones who don't ... well, it isn't pretty. But the process by which they resolve to get themselves out of the complex maze of booby-trapped rooms is interesting, if not somewhat farfetched. The characters are all very stereotyped and serve their roles exactly the way they are meant to, which could be considered a weakness ... but the tension between them all is constantly spasming and fluctuating, creating a lot of unease and unpredictability, which is good even if they seem predictable from the beginning. The most interesting things I came to realize about the movie were what I learned about it after I had finished watching it ... they filmed it all in one cube-shaped room, using colored lights to illuminate the wall panels differently. Talk about a BUDGET!! Hehehe ... I recently heard they are making a sequel called Hypercube where the walls of the complex will be all bright white. Damn, either they just want to make it harder for them to get out, or they have an even smaller budget for the sequel than they did for the first one! A bit strange, no? =)