CUBE

[Guest Tomato Can]

I heard good things about this movie and decided to rent it with a couple of friends.  Frankly, I thought it was the biggest case of a great concept with failed execution I've ever seen.

 

The special effects were as cool as I could expect for a low budget flick, but the acting and script seemed really poor, and ...

 

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

 

What was with the pitifully weak explanation for the cube?  I kinda expected we wouldn't get a full satisfying explanation, but the one we got was laughable and seemed so obviously aimed at "making the audience think" that it was insulting.  I'm sorry, but if some organization or corporation is building the most insane and grandiose structure every produced, and abducting people to place within it, you better fucking believe there'll be a reason for it.

[Guest J*ingus]

SPOILERS SPOILERS I GIVE THINGS AWAY SO FUCK OFF IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT

 

I hated the "explanation" too.  "Well, we'd already built the thing, so we figured it would be a waste if we DIDN'T use it.  Why did we build it in the first place?  Uh, excuse me, my character has to get killed now."  

 

Other gripes:

-It was painfully obvious that the different rooms were just the same set over & over again, with different lighting.  

-So the one black guy also happens to be a violent sex-crazed maniac?  Uh, right.  

-The movie piously proclaims said black guy to be EVIL for lusting after the teenage girl, but at the same time blatantly dresses her in a see-through T-shirt.  Showing an underage girl's nipples has ATTITUDE~!  (Oops, wrong bitching target.)  

-How did the mysterious organization manage to perfectly kidnap a bunch of innocent strangers with them having no memory of it whatsoever?  

-The complete and utter Rain Man ripoff with the math genius autistic guy.  

-The lame copout "ascending to heaven" ending.  

-Okay, everyone in the group was there for a specific reason to help them escape, right?  So what was the point of the random guy in the first scene who got killed instantly?  Was he the Cube equivalent of an opening-match jobber or something?  

-And finally, this cube must be FUCKING big, huge, like sixty stories tall and equally wide on all sides.  So, quite simply, where the hell would you hide anything that big?  There isn't a single spot on the earth where you could stick something that large and not attract attention.  The answer is NOWHERE, because the whole concept is bullshit.

[Guest]

I thought it was decent, but the cop out ending sucked ass.

 

Cube 2 is coming out soon, hopefully it will shed more light on the subject, although it looks like more of the same.

[Guest El Satanico]

-It was painfully obvious that the different rooms were just the same set over & over again, with different lighting.  

.

Um...why are you bitching about that?

 

All the rooms were suppose to look the same. That's the point of them figuring out the pattern of how the cubes moved.

[Guest Tomato Can]

Yea I just read the plot summary for the sequel and it just sounds like the same movie with a MORE INSANE cube.  I hope they realize people will want a little more explanation this time around.

 

I doubt it'll be any good, as writer/director Vincenzo Natali is gone and has been replaced by director Andrzej Sekula and writer Sean Hood, neither of which have worked on anything I've ever heard of.  Check their filmographies on IMDB, it's a pretty sorry sight.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

Am I the only one anticipating Cube 2: Hypercube? I saw the trailer tacked onto The Item when I rented that and I can't wait.  When is it supposed to be released?

 

As for the original Cube, at the same time I enjoyed it but was very frustrated by it.  It managed to be compelling but at the same time not, and fairly drab.  The idea was sound and original, but the execution was good, but not good enough to live up to the concept.  I'd be willing to see it again though, and the DVD is pretty packed for an independent Canadian feature.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

As for the lack of explanations, even though this quote is from Simon Wells on The Time Machine, I think it also accurately applies to the "mystery" of Cube:

 

"We consciously chose not to explain how the time machine works.  I hate movies where a frankly bullshit scientist gives a pseudo-scientific explanation... We deliberately avoided any explanation of how it works.  You just see it work.  It's rather like the physics of Star Trek.  Really, who cares?" - Simon Wells on The Time Machine, Total Movie, December/January 2002

 

For answering some of Jingus' questions, it wouldn't be hard to fit a cube like that in the middle of the desert on one of those secret military bases like Area 51 or something... it could even be partially buried, further disguising its size.  There's a LOT of room out there, and not a lot of people to worry about.  Also, as to how they could kidnap people without them realizing it, the CIA used combinations of hallucinogenics such as LSD and hypnosis in experimentation for fairly effective mind control methods.  Add in some sleep deprivation, and it theoretically wouldn't be that difficult to "erase" someone's memory.  I do agree that the ending was a copout though, and fairly obvious from the first time the audience is introduced to that character.  But hey, you can't win 'em all.

[Guest Tomato Can]

That isn't really consistent.  I want to know why the cube was constructed and if it is important, by whom.  I don't care how it works.  The time machine was built because traveling through time is an intriguing and cool idea, and the way the story is told, and it's construction is not a focus of the plot.

 

A giant cube filled with deathtraps is not really a self-sufficient concept.  The idea alone does not warrant building it.  There has to be reasoning behind it.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I liked Cube.  Partially cause it's Canadian indy filth, partially cause it was original.

 

In it's own little way it is a social commentary saying that the middle class worker has no clue as to what he/she builds will go to.  A guy making screws in Hamilton doesn't know if those screws will go to build bombs, or guns, or a swing set.  Nor does he care.  The Cube is the formation, the end, the result of this ignorance.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

A giant cube filled with deathtraps is not really a self-sufficient concept.  The idea alone does not warrant building it.  There has to be reasoning behind it.

Though you're right about my quote not being a great example, I still think that if the movie went out of its way to explain the Cube's existence and purpose it would've been detrimental to the film.

 

A possible idea I just thought of behind the cube is that it's being tested as and will eventually be used as a mental torture chamber for spies/POW's/etc., people with hardened mental states that the government or whoever built the cube need information to be taken from.

[Guest J*ingus]

A possible idea I just thought of behind the cube is that it's being tested as and will eventually be used as a mental torture chamber for spies/POW's/etc., people with hardened mental states that the government or whoever built the cube need information to be taken from.

Maybe it's just me, but I think it would be a LOT easier to get information out of a guy with a pair of pliers and a box of matches than it would be to put them into a multi-billion dollar deathtrap that could very well kill the guy you're trying to interrogate.  

 

I'm sorry, maybe I'm overstating myself, but I really didn't like this movie and didn't buy any of it for a second.

[Guest converge241]

first off, i love it and cant wait for hypercube

 

 

 

secondly here's what i think happened

**spoiler!!!!**********

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

its a test to get into heaven.. they all died and are in some kind of purgatory. theres a quote that alludes to it from one of the characters that says they last remember driving somewhere (car accident). hence the bright light at the end. Humans picture the purgatory as a machine because of the modern mechanical/technical age we live in. people from the past would envision it as a maze.

[Guest El Satanico]

You know converge...that is exactly what i got from the movie.

 

I think the reason why it was never truly explained just means it wasn't a movie based in real life. The Cube just represents something and it's up to the viewer to figure out what it represents to them.

[Guest the 1inch punch]

The start freaked me out.

Nicole deBoer rules

[Guest]

I really liked CUBE for a TV movie, but I wouldn't have gone to see it in the theaters if I had known that's what it was like.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

That Heaven idea is good, but then wouldn't each of them have to sin before dying?

 

I always figured the ending to be of the sci-fi sort, as in the retard was an alien there to observe human nature.

 

I think if they said what the Cube was for it would ruin the mystery.  The Cube, quite simply, was a creation of society, and that is as vague as it needs to be.

[Guest J*ingus]

Yeah, but none of that makes sense since the one guy was one of the guys who actually worked on the fucking cube, in some capacity.  I thought the movie made it pretty clear that some sort of giant government or corporation built the thing.  

 

And as for the purgatory theory, that doesn't make sense to me either.  Okay, if they survive and get out they go to heaven, right?  So I guess the ones who got killed would go to hell.  But that is such a random system that it just isn't logical.  I mean, once again, what about the guy who got killed instantly at the beginning?  How did he fail any test, all he did was walk into a room.  And (spoiler) a couple of the others were murdered.  How did they fail anything?

[Guest evenflowDDT]

And as for the purgatory theory, that doesn't make sense to me either.  Okay, if they survive and get out they go to heaven, right?  So I guess the ones who got killed would go to hell.  But that is such a random system that it just isn't logical.

Religion, illogical? No...

 

Actually, I never thought of it the purgatory way before.  It kinda makes sense... but not really, because like Jingus said, one of the guys mentioned working on its construction or something.

[Guest El Satanico]

It may not all fit into a neat and tidy package, but i think the "purgatory" thing is the best explanation if you really think about it.

 

As far as that not making total sense, well nothing about "heaven", "hell" or "purgatory" has EVER made sense. This is why Religous people are called believers, because if they actually thought about what they believed in they would laugh and wonder what the fuck they were thinking.

 

Little known facts...God if he exists is an asshole and enjoys killing jews, women and animals for very little reason. So it isn't hard to believe that the first guy that died could've already failed one of the tests.

 

And if you think about it most of the people represented some sort of "siiiiiin". And now that i think about it...maybe the black guy was the "deeeviiil" or a demon trying to take them to hell.

[Guest converge241]

I always figured the ending to be of the sci-fi sort, as in the retard was an alien there to observe human nature

 

thats a good theory i could see that.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, but none of that makes sense since the one guy was one of the guys who actually worked on the fucking cube, in some capacity.  I thought the movie made it pretty clear that some sort of giant government or corporation built the thing.  

 

the guy could have worked on something similar and the guy just belives it.. maybe hes lying. just seems too easy of an explanation. where the hell would they build that btw? by the dimensions they were talking about, youd have to have a pretty big hole in the earth to build it and the space surrounding it.

[Guest Vyce]

CUBE 's an okay film.  It's good for what it is, which is basically a b-movie that attempts to make a social commentary.

 

Of course, let's not forget the best part about the movie:

 

Nicole deBoer

 

Damn straight.  Any film and / or TV series that features Nicole in nothing more than a tiny t-shirt & boxer shorts has my full attention.