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Cube [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
If Clive Barker had written an episode of The Twilight Zone, it might have looked something like Cube. A handful of strangers wake up inside a bizarre maze, having been spirited there during the night. They quickly learn that they have to navigate their way through a series of chambers if they have any hope of escape but the problem is that there are lethal traps awaiting if they choose their route unwisely. Having established some imaginative and grisly punishments in store for the hostages, cowriter and director Vincenzo Natali turns his attention to the characters, for whom being trapped amplifies their best and worst qualities. The film is, in fact, similar to a famous episode of Rod Serling's old television series, though Natali's explanation for why these poor people are being put through hell is a lot closer to the spirit of The X-Files. Cube has some solid moments of suspense and drama and the sets are appropriately striking: one is tempted to believe at first the characters are lost inside a computer chip. --Tom Keogh
Genius.
Review date: 2008-10-13 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is one of the most intelligent films ever made. It is a metaphor for the prison that is the limitations of the human mind/western society.
The clues throughout the film are abundant. Each of the characters' names represents a prison:
Leaven + Worth = Fort Leavenworth Prison.
Holloway = Women's Prison.
Kazan = Prison for the mentally handicapped.
Rennes = Prison that innovated many prison norms and regulations used today (Hence Renne's creativity in dealing with traps).
Quentin = San Quentin, a prison known for it's brutality.
Alderson = A prison that focuses on isolation as a form of punishment.
Each of the characters has a skill that will help the group as a whole to escape but conversely each skill is tied to some character defect. Quentin is the leader (cop) who is also a bully when he doesn't get his way, Worth is, effectively, an insider who knows about the making of the Cube - he knows that there is no master plan or conspiracy but that the Cube is just a product of people like him who just do what they are told, accept a pay-cheque and don't want any trouble. Worth is not really that bothered about telling anyone else in the Cube because he is not really concerned as to whether he or anyone else escapes - he is indifferent, 'worthless'.
Holloway cares for the mentally ill but shows no care or tact towards her peers.
Wren is an escape artist but not interesting in helping the others escape.
Leaven is a pretty, young and brilliant Maths student but tends towards apathy.
Kazan is a maths genius...perhaps...but has no ability to socialize (he is autistic).
Alderson is a loner whose faith above reason destroys him very early on.
The set of characters in the cube are bound by culturally constructed laws, rules and letters. There are 26(x26x26) rooms which may represent letters in the American-English alphabet. The rooms are all marked by 3-dimensional Cartesian co-ordinates (representing the limits of human spatial imagination). Traps in the rooms conform to a rule with respect to the particular coordinates and the prime numbers applicable to the 3-digit number.
The Cube and the technological traps within thus represents western society as a product of technico-cultural evolution and the individuals inside are trapped by a) the limits of their imagination as represented by the Cube logic, as well as by b) their inability to cooperate.
These two facets are the simultaneous products of historico-cultural evolution of western thought. The Cartesian perspective of "I think, therefore I am" projects a dualist, separatist view of the world - i am different and separate from that around me. This philosophy is, in itself, a product of the legacy of orthodox Christian theology - Christianity is at heart a religion that preaches separation and ego-centrism, e.g. I am special, if I behave i go to heaven, I have an inner-self which is in some sense separate from the material world.
This perspective conflicts with Eastern philosophical doctrines such as Buddhism that emphasize instead the oneness of beings and the (physical and social) world around them. The inability of the individuals to apprehend the Cube's limitations (and thus be able to escape) is a manifestation of their own inability to throw off the shackles of their own personal and inherited socio-cultural history - they are born free but everywhere they are in chains. They are trapped by their own separatist identities, perceived failings, and ego-centrism.
Furthermore, they are victims of being part of a society that rewards such separation. They are stuck in the "Prisoner's Dilemma" (Axelrod, 1984) - the simple premise is that cooperation can provide greater benefit than self-interested behaviour but only if others are willing to cooperate. If other fail to cooperate, it is better to be self-interested rather than a sucker.
This is a frequency-dependent phenomenon meaning that if a majority decide to cooperate, then cooperation will pay and cheaters may even be punished so as to encourage cooperation - tight-knit Eastern societies such as those in Japan and China work along these principles.
So, ultimately the individuals' skills are tied to their failings as this is all part and parcel of the separatist identity they have developed - an aspect of human nature that necessarily develops from infancy to adulthood in conjunction with basic self-consciousness and identity formation but has been prolonged into adulthood by a socio-cultural western tradition routed in Christian and Cartesian separatism and egocentrism.
The prisoners' inability to recognize that they are just elements in a bigger dynamical system which doesn't render them worthless (a perceptual side-effect of egocentric excess) but rather necessary elements of the macro state, the group, accounts for their failure to escape - the irony being that the one escapee is the one that is indifferent to his fate and not bounded by the rules and regulations of the Cube so representative of the western socially constructed world.
Through the overcoming of egocentrism the individuals have the potential to escape their personal prisons that the Cube represents and that is a manifestation of a symbolic, rule-based world in which they have developed - again a Christian legacy that has affected philosophical and scientific perspectives (e.g. information theory, gene-centrism, cognitivism) and governs western thinking to this day.
From this escape they can unravel possibilities that may take them beyond the constraints of current western intellectual imagination and free them from the hell of a world that is bereft of executive instruction (whether from God, aliens, or human dictators) and is instead a socio-culturally evolved accident.
Where such a liberated path might lead noone knows, but any path out of the inferno can't be bad, can it?
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Reviews
Extremely poor script and even worse acting! Beyond Cliche.
Review date: 2008-05-21 Rating: 2 out of 10
This is an appalling film. With an extremely poor script and even worse acting, it's filled with cliche after cliche. This is a shame as i think that the original concept for the film is promising, and in the hands of a better writer, director and cast, it could be fantastic. But as it stands, any opportunity for an intelligent and unique sci-fi has been squandered in favour of a cheesy soap-drama, that is so bad it could be mistaken for a spoof. In summary, i was VERY disappointed.
terrible
Review date: 2008-02-22 Rating: 2 out of 10
You can suspend your disbelief that people can be in such a situation, of course, but what you can't ignore is the awful dialogue, riddled with cliche, delivered by the worst actors you are ever likely to see. Never heard of these actors? No, you never will. I wanted them to die but the one who is the most annoying is the one survives.
The mother of all cubes!
Review date: 2007-10-19 Rating: 8 out of 10
Amazingly well-made SF-thriller. Super-low budget, but that only adds to the charm. Lack of money forced the makers to be inventive and come up with a fantasticly gripping, powerful and highly mysterious story. Creepy, eerie, and well-acted. Even the ending doesn,t let the movie down.
Cube 1. Let,s make it absolutely clear i,m talking about Cube 1. Avoid sequels at all cost. They try to explain what should have stayed a mystery.
Low-budget, thriller/social study
Review date: 2007-09-25 Rating: 10 out of 10
This is one of my favourite films - a bit of a thinker and the tension is brilliantly conceived.
The acting is better than many hollywood blockbusters, and the sets work well.
I think you've got to make your own mind up about what it is about and what it all means - better than being spoon-fed saccharine-sweet explanations and endings that tie everything up nice and neatly.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Andrew Miller
Nicole de Boer
Nicky Guadagni
Maurice Dean Wint
David Hewlett
Creators:
Nicole de Boer (Primary Contributor)
Maurice Dean Wint (Primary Contributor)
Derek Rogers (Cinematographer)
Vincenzo Natali (Writer)
John Sanders (Editor)
Betty Orr (Producer)
Colin Brunton (Producer)
Mehra Meh (Producer)
André Bijelic (Writer)
Graeme Manson (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Lions Gate
Manufacturer: Lions Gate
EAN: 9781588177322
Binding: DVD
ISBN: 1588177327
Number of items: 1
Format: Closed-captioned, Colour, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen,
Release date: 2003-04-15
Universal product code (UPC): 031398826521
Region code: 1
Running time: 90 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1997
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)