Cube (1997) Review

Written by: Zomboy   

It is always refreshing to get an original concept in a movie. Cube is definitely an original idea. Now many people say that this film was the precursor for the now famous “Saw” series. I can definitely see that being true, but the film concepts are indeed different enough to make it not seem like a blatant rip off.

Cube starts out simple enough (after the intro) when we find 6 strangers who awake in a large cube shaped room. None of them now any of the other people, and none of them recall the events previous to them awaking, or how they got here. Now, in the room are 6 doors; four on the walls, and 2 on the ceiling and floor. These doors lead to other cubed rooms (of different colors) which in turn have 6 more doors which lead to other rooms, and so forth. One other thing about the rooms is that though some are just plain rooms, when other are armed with deadly traps that automatically kill, which are set off by different kinds of detectors.

Now these strangers must work together to find their way out of the seemingly endless maze. Soon they discover that all of them have some ability that is crucial to helping them find their way out. And as the puzzles in the maze become more challenging, tensions rise among the people. And they won’t only have to save themselves from the traps in the cubes, but also from each other.

Though the acting in the movie isn’t top-notch terrific, and there isn’t a lot of character development (which there really wasn’t room for), the characters are portrayed very humanly, and aren’t overdone at all.

The story is very clever and interesting and is fun to learn bits about the cubes unfold as tidbits of info come from the characters. And also, the special effects are great! I mean I have no idea how they made the cubes in the movie look so good, it was awesome! And it has some nice gore to boot as well. Finally, about the movies scares. It actually manages to get quite creepy at times, as well as suspenseful. It’s really a claustrophobic kind of fear because of the setting.

This one is definitely worth the watch!