Cube (Wide Screen) > Reviews > No you're a Cube

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Outstanding
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Outstanding

Advantages:	Great characters
Disadvantages:	Not for all

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The Science Fiction/Horror combo is one of my favourite genres of film, I just can't get enough of the Alien series and others like Sphere etc. So I just had to see Cube.

The film starts with a guy inside a square room on his own he moves to a small square doors in the middle of one of the walls and passes into the next room which is identical but for the colour. Nothing strange yet, but then there is a quick swishing noise and the man freezes. A trickle of blood is soon followed by many more as lines appear all over his body were he has been quickly sliced by a wire mesh. His body then falls apart gruesomely onto the floor.
The film then starts with several characters in meeting in a cube room. We have Quentin who asserts himself as group leader. Holloway, a doctor in her 50s. Leaven, a young, booky, teenage girl who has broke her glasses. Worth a cynical and quiet man. Rennes an ex-con known for escaping from high-security films. None of them know how they have got where they are.

Renne informs them that there are several rooms all like the one they are in, except some of them are booby-trapped. He has established a method of checking for booby-traps by throwing a boot into the room and then pulling it back by the lace. This works at first but then certain rooms seem to have different sensors ranging from motion sensors to molecule sensors and sound sensors. My favourite scene was when they entered the room with the sound sensor, by this stage they had met the autistic Kazan who made uncontrollable noises. Very well directed and one of the most tense scenes I'd ever seen in a film.

They all try to escape and figure out what is happening. Strange earthquakes occur occasionally which confuse them and there are strange numbers on the doors that seem to be some indication of what rooms are booby trapped but they have to work them out.

My Opinion

I really liked this. What I first liked was the fact that the entire film is shot in a small square room. Of course they are moving into different coloured rooms but it was all just a change of lights. Managing to make such a high calibre film on such a small set was quite an accomplishment. The film is alos very character driven. At first you formulate certain opinions about characters but these will change and then they'll change again. The characters were all very interesting and there were no 'types'. Some of them know more than they let on at first and some of them are there for a purpose. Interestingly I found out that all the characters names are taken from various prisons that are similar to their personailty. Holloway for example is a women's prison and Holloway in the film takes on a very motherly role. It was also interesting that you never find out the purpose of the cube or what it actually is and the ending leaves you on a cliff hanger.

The acting was largely okay. Not bad at all for a film like this. The special effects were also applaudable for such a low budget film. The story and script was excellent and I would certainly recommend it to people and I plan on watching the other two Cube movies myself.

Cast
Nicole de Boer - Joan Leaven, maths student.
Nicky Guadagni - Dr. Helen Holloway, a doctor
David Hewlett - David Worth, an architect of the outer shell
Andrew Miller - Kazan, the autistic savant
Wayne Robson - Rennes, the fugitive
Maurice Dean Wint - Quentin, the policeman

Certificate

15. There are a few gorey scenes and some scenes of extreme violence.

Price

On sale on Amazon from £3.00

Trailer

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi463470873/

I would also like to point out that in the Uk and Ireland at least glasses are not made out of glass and I really doubt if they aremade out of glass in America. They're made out of plastic and do not smash at all as easily as films would have you believe. I have to wear glasses for watching Tv and reading and I'm really clumsy with them in between times and I've never had the lens smash. Get realy scratched yes but not smash.