Great concept is muddled by too many glaring flaws

Rating: Null/10 (3 October 2002)

The premise of CUBE is an interesting, highly original one: six complete strangers awaken in a cubical maze/prison with absolutely no recollection of how they got there. Each of the characters has his or her own unique talent, which helps the party in their quest to escape, avoid the maze's deadly traps, and find answers as to why they were captured and imprisoned. It sounds awesome, and the film's trailer is certainly intriguing, but you may be disappointed.
CUBE's major fault is the overdone, unbelievable character development. Everyone in this movie seems to have bipolar disorder, as they all turn from friendly to hostile (or, in one particular case, downright evil), then back again without question. Even for a situation this serious, there's far too many unrealistic emotional loops for the movie's span of 1-2 days. Also, why doesn't anybody complain about being hungry or thirsty?
Another area where the film falls flat has to do with its inconsistencies involving mathematics. CUBE relies heavily on math by assigning numbers to each of the rooms, which supposedly represent their coordinates on a three-dimensional grid. Leaven, this math-whiz character (who does virtually all of the work in the movie), can quickly and easily decipher their position, a process which is theoretically a long, draining, and frustrating one. Sure, she may be a math whiz, but then why did she have such a hard time determining if three-digit numbers were prime back towards the beginning of the film? She concentrates for several seconds on numbers that are very obviously not prime, such as even numbers and numbers that are multiples of five. Many people who have absolutely no mathematical talent whatsoever (take me, for example) are able remember these sixth-grade rules.
Later on in the movie, she dismisses certain complex math problems as being impossible to figure out mentally due to the numbers being astronomical. Mind you, these are the exact same types of problems that she had no trouble solving earlier.
Another gripe I had with CUBE is that it can't make up its mind whether it wants to be realistic or surreal. It's okay to blend the two to a certain degree, but this movie fails by resorting to an unsatisfying middle ground. If the movie lived up to its ideal surrealistic potential, then it would have been far more existential and reminiscent of the classic surrealist play NO EXIT than of some nameless suspense/thriller action flick. CUBE would have been so much better off not trying to give a concrete explanation about the labyrinth. The character's original thoughts and assumptions were much more exciting and thought-provoking than the dull, unsatisfying answers given by Worth, the character who, believe it or not, was contracted to draw blueprints for the cube's outer shell.
Still, CUBE is not a terrible movie. At times it's exciting, it's unnerving, and it's fascinating. And visually, its a masterpiece. The single set used to depict all the 14'x14'x14' rooms looks terrific, the cinematography is really clever, and the gore effects (which are included but not really needed) are EXTREMELY realistic and disturbing. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, the basic yet innovative plot line of CUBE simply can't be beat.