Could have been great

Rating: 4/10 (7 August 1999)

This is a movie that, in the hands of a more disciplined writer, could have been a sci-fi classic. The premise -- six strangers awake to find themselves in a seemingly infinite series of interconnected room, many of which are lethally booby-trapped -- is intriguing. And early on, as the group explores the rooms and begins to ask the obvious questions about their situation, the movie seems very promising.
Unfortunately, that promise is never fulfilled. Instead of exploring those questions -- where are we? why were we chosen? who built the Cube? -- the writer takes the easy way out, as the second half of the movie degenerates into nihilistic pointlessness. The mysteries that were developed in the first half are casually dismissed as the characters become steadily nastier and the plot becomes steadily sillier.