Like Cube itself this film is a work of (evil) genius

Rating: 9/10 (11 February 2003)

I watched Cube again a few days ago and got far more out of it the first time. It's one of those films which creates a mood and leaves you thinking about it for days afterwards, kind of alters the way you look at things. I think that is what film making at its best is all about.
Cube is a terrifying film, a kind of Orwell/ Huxley nightmare. Somehow a group of people have been trapped in an endless maze of cubic rooms some containing the most lethal traps. Their task, presumably - they are given no instructions - is to avoid the traps and find the exit before they die of hunger and thirst. It's a terrifying thought that innocent people can be taken from their own homes in the middle of the night and transported to such a cruel and devilishly sophisticated experiment. You wonder who could have the power to do such a thing: the characters speculate, government, a Bond style supervillain? but they never can find out for sure, no evil genius ever presents himself and indeed it would be a total letdown if they did. The main character in the story is the implacible Cube itself, an endless 3D maze of 14ft-on-a-side cubic rooms each with 6 exits to ajacent rooms (including ceiling and floor). There are no windows of course and each room is lit by its glowing walls. Different rooms have different colours, red, blue, green and white and this brilliantly adds to the eerie feel and look of the film. Each coloured room has an atmosphere of its own, the white ones of definitely the most cheery, its as bright as daylight and you can see the colours clearly: but there is no guarantee that a white room doesn't contain a trap, in fact there seems to be no correspondance between colours and traps, that would be too easy.
But there is a way to get through the maze, each room has a number written along its edges and its possible to work out a way out from that, provided you have enough mathematical ability. The cube is already mathematical in terms of being such an ideal geometric structure and this "number theory" twist adds greatly to the intrigue. It involves the audience as they try to solve the puzzle themselves and also gives the characters something to do. Some of the characters - is it coincidence - do have mathematical ability.
There are five characters in the film, as you might expect they are an eclectic bunch with more than usual amounts of emotional problems and eccentricities. Imagine waking up in a cubic room with nothing but identical rooms all around! After coping with the shock and rising terror, the characters set off to find a way out and naturally different personalities start to assert themselves. Some characters are natural leaders others are more thoughtful. Some hopeful of a way out, others just despair accepting death as inevitable. It turns out that one if tangentially responsible for building the cube in the first place adding to the paranoid feeling that NO ONE IS SAFE.
The acting in this film is excellent, you really believe in the whole cube concept from the start. The actors really make you feel how frightening and disorienting it would be and there is superbly believable and fascinating interactions between them as they each find their place in this frightened little group. Although they cope well there is throughout a sense of underlying tension, a feeling of just-controlled panic, which is exactly how you would feel in that situation! There is good character development too as the movie goes on and we find out more about each character's lives and personalities.
The directing and cinematography of the film are superb, the whole concept of Cube is just amazing and the visuals do full justice to it. The look of the film is reminiscent of Kubrick at his most spooky and disorienting. There is one scene in particular where the characters are trying to get though a sound-activated trap. One by one they crawl through it in total silence gesturing to each other. I was scared to make any sound myself, it was completely electric! It takes a daring director to have five minutes of silence in a film and this really paid off. It reminded my particularly of 2001 EVA scenes.
If I have a complaint at all it is about the ending. I wont reveal it of course, but I would have prepared something happier. After all they've been through, I would have preferred to see the characters succeed, especially cynical worth and the mathematical girl, they really deserved to get out. I would have rewritten the last few seconds, but nothing else.
The 3D maze known as Cube is a work of evil genius created by persons of institutions unknown. I would say this film is also a work of genius, not evil but certainly terrifying, disturbing and deeply moving. I would definitely recommend it, but be prepared for some sleepless nights... (and an obsessive interest in prime numbers!)