Movie Review--Cube

"I mean, nobody wants to see the big picture.  Life's too complicated."
--David Worth, Cube


A conceptual predecessor of Saw, even if James Wan never watched, discussed, or heard of it, Cube features a starting premise comparable to that of the biggest horror franchise known for traps.  The sheer conceptual creativity of focusing on a handful of people inside a series of cubic rooms, some of them rigged with lethal mechanisms, disguises the budgetary restraints of the film and allows the philosophical approaches to the trial to take a place of great prominence.  Cube succeeds as an independent film that foreshadows the later development of a subgenre within the loosely overlapping horror and thriller genres and that makes the most of its limited production resources.


Production Values

Little to no CGI is present for much of the film, leaving the mystery, acting, and themes to hold Cube together.  Solid performances from cast members that are not necessarily familiar to mainstream viewers help push each scene along.  Cube is driven forward primarily by its character interactions and by the ambiguity of the setting, so consistently weak acting could have shot the film in the leg.  Thankfully, the cast showcases desperation, despair, aggression, and vulnerability well across the full runtime.  Characters that survive until the last fourth of the movie are genuinely developed in that viewers see new sides of them, and, although each one falls into their own category that might at times resemble a cliche, their distinct personalities, talents, and philosophical ideologies make them unique by comparison to each other.


Story

Some spoilers are below.

A man named Alderson wakes up inside a cube-shaped room numerous square panels on the walls and advances into a separate room only to trigger a grated device that slices him into pieces.  Seemingly not long after, a group of people in similar rooms shaped like cubes converge and begin an attempt to escape.  At first a set of numbers in the passages between rooms seems to suggest which rooms contain traps, but they turn out to serve as markers for certain positions within the larger cube.  Even while making progress in venturing through the trap network, the worldviews and personalities of those in the cube clash to the point of impending violence.


Intellectual Content

Cube doesn't focus on moralism to the same extent as Saw or Se7en, but the stress of the film's situation does bring out abusive tendencies and sexism towards both men and women in at least one abductee and nihilism in another, forcing the characters to examine themselves and each other in light of their values, desires, and goals.  Nihilism, the unverifiable and irrefutable idea that meaning does not exist is one of the film's grandest ideological focuses.  Never once do any characters specifically say that it is impossible to prove that objective meaning (the only kind of meaning, as a subjective sense of fulfillment or contentment is irrelevant) does not exist, as one can at most only refute fallacious ideas that conflict with nihilism, but they do argue about the nature of meaning without shying away from its importance.  In a culture where casual cynicism might be confused for nihilism, even that much is useful.


Conclusion

As an independent movie, Cube is a classic example of the thematic and storytelling creativity that competent filmmakers can produce with limited resources.  Enormous budgets and actors/actresses that most audiences would recognize are in no way requirements for a film to possess quality.  Its originality is by far its strongest, most overarching aspect, but most of its other elements are not weak.  They fit together in a way that merges simplicity and complexity: the simplicity of the premise and the lax need for effects other than the practical kind give the comparatively abstract themes and mystery the spotlight.  Even if the mystery is left almost wholly intact, there are major plot developments, and Cube is all the better for it.


Content:
 1.  Violence:  A man's body is cut apart and falls to the ground in pieces.  Another person's face dissolves onscreen when sprayed with acid, and several physical fights between characters spill blood.
 2.  Profanity:  Words like "fuck" are used multiple times.