A clever example of low-budget sci-fi

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2018)

I guess you would have to classify this Canadian film as an example of how to intelligently make a low budget science fiction film. All too often cheap sci-fi movies end up falling under the bracket of film which can best be described as 'corridors in space' movies, i.e. lots of scenes of people running (and walking) up and down corridors (of the future). These movies are almost always deeply tedious, at least partially on account of their limited settings. What Cube cleverly does is use this handicap to its advantage, where the limited location is also kind of the point of the entire movie and part of its overall suspense generator. A group of people wake up and find themselves in a high-tech maze made up of giant inter-connecting cube shaped rooms; some cubes having deadly hidden traps situated in them. It is an imaginative and original idea for its time and it sure makes the most of limited budget by using its sets in this way.
What it all boils down to is a puzzle movie where we follow a bunch of people trying to work out how they got where they are. It has the good sense to remain pretty enigmatic in many respects and not explain everything, and realising that it is often the questions which are more interesting than the answers. While there are a few memorably gory moments, the approach is very much more psychological and all the better for it. It is not a perfect film, as it suffers from some weak performances and the setting does - slightly - suffer from over-familiarity to at least some degree. But, on the whole, this is a commendably original bit of low budget sci-fi which deserves its cult status.