Six strangers awake in a strange room with six openings. They don't know how they got there or how to get out. Quentin, a police officer with ingrained prejudices and a lot of anger; Leaven, a student with a gift for maths, Worth, an architect partially responsible for the design of the Cube; Holloway, a doctor; and Kazan, an autist.
As they explore the cube, they meet other visitors and....
Six strangers awake in a strange room with six openings. They don't know how they got there or how to get out. Quentin, a police officer with ingrained prejudices and a lot of anger; Leaven, a student with a gift for maths, Worth, an architect partially responsible for the design of the Cube; Holloway, a doctor; and Kazan, an autist.
As they explore the cube, they meet other visitors and numerous rooms filled with deadly traps - acid, razor wire and spikes, all designed to kill any who have not realised the way to avoid them.
Being set in countless similar rooms, the film focuses on character. We explore the reasons why these people in particular have been selected, and what the purpose of the cube is, based on their own world paradigms; Holloway sees it as one big conspiracy, whilst Quentin sees it as survival of the fittest. Deprived of water and food, the tension grows as they strive to discover the way out of the cube.
This is an interesting film in that it cleverly places people in a position where the audience is interested to find out about the characters. The film is mostly talking seperated by a few tense segments of action. Some of these are incredibly tense, and it is actually these that show the film at its best. Unfortunately I think that the director Natali is most comfortable with dialogue and personal conflict, and as such tends to end the action segments quickly and predictably. The first fifty minutes of the film are enjoyable, but the characters take far too long to crack the puzzles and clues, and as for the purpose of Kazan in the maze, well, have they never watched Rainman. The last half an hour or so was so predictable as to be painful, which ruined much of the innovation and industry of the first hour. By the time the credits rolled I was pleased that I could go and do something more interesting.
As for the DVD, the picture was clear and bright, with no bleed from the room colour. Sound was very disappointing, a fairly dull surround sound missed a trick, with a film about paranoia, a DD5.1 track could have really immersed the audience in the cube. Some neat animated menus are spoilt by a lack of extras, smart production photos are all that's present, which are really for cube obsessives, but to be honest, anyone obsessed with this film probably also lives in a box with no way out. 2.5 out of 5.