Brilliant, absorbing & ingenious horror thriller.

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2005)

Cube starts with a man named Alderson (Julian Richings) waking up in a square 14'x14' room with strangely decorated panels on the walls from which a white light shines through, he notices six hatches one on each wall, the ceiling & floor. Alderson opens one & enters the joining room which is exactly the same as the one he came from except a different colour light is shining through the translucent panels, inside he sets off a bobby trap that slices him into little pieces using razor wire... Six complete stranger's find themselves placed in similar cubes, a young maths student named Joan Leaven (Nicole de Boer), an architect David Worth (David Hewlett), a cop named Quentin (Mauruce Dean Wint), a doctor named Helen Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), an autistic boy Kazan (Andrew Miller) & an escaped convict Rennes (Wayne Robson). Each cube leads into another, some of which contain deadly traps while other's are perfectly safe, they have no food or water, no equipment & have no knowledge of the cube itself or why they are there. The six must try to work together & discover the secret of the cube & find a way out or die trying...
This Canadian production was co-written & directed by Vincenzo Natali & is a simple yet superb film, I loved it. The script by Natali, Andre Bijelic & Graeme Manson is just so brilliant in it's simplicity. Who would have thought a film set almost entirely in various cube rooms that look exactly the same could be so gripping, engaging & so entertaining. The idea is just ingenious & Cube is really original & unique which is a hard trait to come by these days in films. The character's their emotions & personal struggles are very well written & developed & we really get to know each of them without long boring dialogue scenes. The film works wonderfully well & I was as puzzled as the character's on screen as they try to find a way out & I liked the idea that each one had a certain ability that needed to be found & utilised. Nothing in Cube is explained to any real degree of satisfaction which may annoy some people but I found the unanswered questions & mystery surrounding the cube added another layer to an already great film. On the negative side it can get a bit samey being set in exactly the same room for 90 odd minutes, I can't see many repeat viewings & the ending was maybe a bit too downbeat.
Director Natali can't really do much to spruce things up since Cube is set in a single location although flashy camera work & CGI effect's isn't what Cube is about. He does manage to create terrific tension & atmosphere, I almost felt like I was there with them at times! There isn't much gore, someone is sliced into cubes & falls apart, someone has their face burned off with acid & there are a couple of stabbings.
With a low budget Cube was shot entirely in one single 14'x14' room in which the lighting was changed to signify the different rooms. Technically Cube is fine with decent special effects & production values but the very nature of the film doesn't give much scope for variety. The acting is very strong by all involved & did you notice the relevance of the character's last names? They are all named after real prisons, Quentin is named after San Quentin in California, Holloway is a prison in England, Kazan in Russia, Rennes in France, Alderson in West Virginia while Leaven & Worth are obviously both taken from Leavenworth in Kansas. So now you know.
I think Cube is a fantastic film that everyone should watch at least once, it's very clever, original, mysterious & totally gripping. I absolutely loved it. Followed by a sequel Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) & a prequel Cube Zero (2004) but I doubt either of them are as good.