Cube

rated - TEPID

This little Canadian film feels more like a Twilight Zone episode than a feature film. I think it might have been better in a 40 minute format. It starts well, with an intriguing, mysterious idea - and a violent event. The scene is set, and then the audience is involved in solving the mystery of the cube, and why we are stuck in it.

Soon it becomes obvious that the money that was saved by using only one set was not spent on hiring the best actors available. Nor was it spent on a script-doctor to work on the ailing screenplay. It doesn't take a maths genius to work out the secret of the numbers, and once that secret is explained the script seems to run completely out of ideas, so the characters are forced to act out-of-character and each to throw a fit of a different kind. Then the director falls back on shock tactics, and doesn't bother to resolve the outstanding questions.

Because there was relatively little to think about during the film, I fell back on getting annoyed about various details, including such questions as: why the characters all seemed to have names associated with prisons, how it was so easy to scratch equations on metal with a plastic button, and how a cube that was described as impenetrable, and with a perfectly smooth skin, could have a DOOR!