Genuine Craftsmanship

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 2003)

I love the experience of watching a low budget film that succeeds in outperforming its big-budget brethren. It just goes to show you don't need big-name talent from Hollywood to make a good film. Shot in Canada? People I've never heard of? Who cares - I've heard of George Lucas and Star Wars, but his latest entries has made this fan abandon the force. After viewing Cube I think Lucas needs to move to Canada and find what he lost 20 years ago.
I didn't think anyone made films like this anymore. I thought the day of good low budget horror took a fatal blow in the 70s, slowly dying out in the 80s and 90s. All the low-budget franchises have gained a significant budget now (not Matrix 2 huge, but way larger than Halloween's $300k) and all the horror films still operating on a tiny budget are too deliberately campy for me to enjoy. But here we have proof that good horror can be made on a shoe-string. Granted I have a number of reasons to not like Cube, I found the film rather charming and intriguing.
Despite the set consisting of one room made to look like an entire maze, it succeeds in never boring the viewer. The cube has a very raw, industrial, and enigmatic feel in the same vein as the original Alien film's set only here we have cubic rooms with monochromatic lighting appropriately color coded with the walls, giving each room its own flavor and atmosphere. It's actually one of the better uses of color onscreen that I've seen, and it's an extremely simple effect seamlessly integrated into the plot.

As simple as the set and its lighting is, it's more convincing than the vast amounts of CG that fills the Star Wars prequels and thus easier to get into Cube's world. With Star Wars you needed the force to believe the videogame graphics all around was more than an ILM pleasure cruise. But here the actors can actually touch and interact appropriately with their set.
I've read a number of complaints about the acting, and took a bit of amusement reading Muskewitz's comments at E-Film Critic where he states he'd like to see the film remade Gus Van Sant-esque and just replace the actors .. . and immediately my mind again jumped to the big-budget films Star Wars I & II. I definitely have to disagree with him and the number of people who gripe about the film's acting. While not the greatest performances in the history of Sci-fi, I still found the characters and their portrayals superior to the later Star Wars cast (with the exception of Ian McDiarmid and an elite handful of others).
The characters themselves, while borderline cliché with its diversity in their backgrounds - a collection of people from all places of society to be slaughtered - it didn't bother me like HyperCube's characters did. The writers used just enough restraint to never push their characters over the line and again monotony was cleverly used to tone down the cliché factor. All the characters are dressed the same so we rely more on their physical appearance and personality to reveal who they are versus `Okay, she's dressed like a geek. She's formal. He's a bum. That guy's a loser.' So now we have real characters, some more fleshed out than others, but now we have a reason to worry if the traps kill someone.
And then there's something I really appreciate - a film with a premise but no explanation. Some call it a cheat, others call it a cop-out, I call it `Not cramming every major plot point in simpleton idiotic terms so the average moron can understand.' Finally, a movie that doesn't kill itself with explanation after explanation. Finally a film that lends itself to the audience's imagination. Orson Welles once said, `Give the audience too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theatre its meaning: when it becomes a social act.' If you enjoy being talked down to and everything explicitly written out, don't even bother with Cube.

Besides, not one character in the film is ever in a position to know anything about the Cube. The film obeys its own logic, pulls no punches in its reasoning, in that regard, and I found it refreshing having a movie where no one truly knows anything concrete. The writers didn't stoop to the half-ass conceived `Someone just happens to have the answers to the universe in this group and is 100% right. What a coincidence!' Every explanation is conjectural and abstract at best. It goes for a more realistic approach. And really, if you're stuck in a booby trapped Cube, do you need to know everything about its origin to try and save your ass and get out? Cube gives you what you need and goes from there. I also liked how the characters depend on trial and error since most revelations on how to escape end up as a failure to include all variables. They don't just magically have the answer.
In the end, Cube succeeds in building atmosphere and suspense quite impressively given what it had to work with. While not without its disappointing moments (usually when they do bend to Hollywood formulas), Cube is a triumph of low budget craftsmanship. I hope Natali proves to be more than a one-hit wonder, because I'd love to see more films like Cube.