Cube (1997)

A man wakes up in a bizarre white cube-shaped room with strange patterns along the walls. There are small sliding hatches on every wall as well as the ceiling and floor. His outfit resembles a prison uniform with the name Alderson written on it. Alderson looks as if he has no idea where he is or what is going on. He opens a couple of hatches to find nearly identical looking rooms. Only the color of the walls differ from room to room. He climbs into an orange room and walks forward until he abruptly stops. Blood begins trickling all over his body. Alderson’s head splits in two as the rest of his body falls to pieces. A thin razor-sharp cage dripping blood becomes visible as it rises back up towards the ceiling.

A bloodied man climbs through the floor into a red room. He sees another man unconscious in the corner. A young woman climbs in through the wall. The bloodied man tells her to be careful where she steps. Another door opens, revealing another woman. The paranoid bloodied man, startled by her entrance, grabs her aggressively pulling her into the room. He then apologizes and tells her everything is going to be alright. As the man in the corner begins to wake up, another man climbs down from the ceiling but doesn’t seem to have any interest in the others. All of them are wearing the same style of prison clothing with names stitched on them. Before anyone makes another move, the bloodied man tells everyone to stop what they’re doing so they can work together to figure out where they are, how they got there, and how they can get out. The bloodied man is a cop named Quentin, the previously unconscious man is Worth, the young woman a college student named Leaven who is particularly skilled at math, the other woman a psychiatrist named Holloway, and the third man a prison escapee named Rennes. Quentin tries to rally everyone to work together in order to find their way out. He tells the group some rooms are booby trapped, explaining why he is bleeding, while other rooms are safe. A series of numbers appear on every hatch. Leaven figures those numbers have to mean something important. Between dodging death traps and trying not to kill each other due to their differing personalities, Quentin and company find themselves becoming less optimistic about their chances for survival.

 

What I Liked

Fun fact: every character is named after a prison.

The Claustrophobic Setting

I love movies that take place in a single setting. Having a story set on a smaller scale can bring out a lot creativity in the writers and these types of films tend to also be more character-driven. Always a good thing in my book. We only get a brief glimpse of what lies beyond the cube: a giant wall, a ceiling, with no view of the ground. Essentially, our protagonists are being held within a giant Rubik’s Cube filled with death traps that is surrounded by the shell of another cube. We’re never given a look at the outside world, which makes the film feel claustrophobic for us viewers too. The strange environment of the cube creates an uneasy feeling that only heightens our anxiety as the characters begin to lose hope. Many other films have tried the one-location, claustrophobic setting and some of them are pretty decent. But if you’re searching for a film about groups of people trapped in a claustrophobic prison forced to solve some kind of puzzle to get out, then Cube is the go-to film in this genre!

Quentin and Worth

While this film does have an ensemble, the primary relationship is the rivalry between Quentin and Worth. In fact the heart of the film is Worth’s journey towards becoming a hero and Quentin’s descent into becoming a villain. It doesn’t take long for us to learn Quentin is a cop. This makes sense as he tries to calm everyone, organize them, and take on a definitive leadership role in the group. He’s set up to be the main hero but the script takes an unexpected (though not out-of-place) turn for the worse. The longer our protagonists remain in the cube, the more unhinged Quentin becomes. Instead of looking out for his fellow prisoners, he seeks to control them. By the time they reach the edge of the cube Holloway has defied Quentin one too many times, leading him to drop her off the side of the cube. His true self has emerged. The calm, confident, poised authority figure persona he exuded at the beginning has been stripped away. In reality Quentin is a violent man who let his own power get to his head. He thinks he alone can dictate who is worthy of living and who is a danger to the group.

Worth starts off as the most mysterious, and antagonistic, one of them all. He’s cynical, doesn’t speak much, contributes nothing of worth in their efforts to escape, and mocks Quentin’s resolve to survive. Eventually Quentin calls him out, telling Worth that if everything is pointless then he should just head straight into a trap. Get it over with. Quentin is able to get a rise out of Worth, making the mystery man shout “there is no way out!” Holloway questions how he could know that. Worth comes clean: he is an architect who was hired to design a large cube with no exits. He clarifies by saying he didn’t design the cube they are currently standing in, but rather an outer shell of a cube. So it turns out the pessimistic mystery man designed part of the cube and knew people were being put in it for the last couple of months. At that moment my “villain alert” started going off. As they continue onwards Worth begins to actually work with the team. He bonds with Leaven and Holloway and tries to be patient with Kazan (more on him later). By the end Worth has surprisingly become the main hero through sacrificing himself to save Kazan from Quentin. I’ll get to the rest of the cast now, but these two needed a category of their own because both of them are transformed the most through the cube.

Holloway, Leaven, Rennes & Kazan

As tensions continue rising, Holloway attempts to keep the group calm; even though she sometimes has difficulty keeping herself calm. Holloway is very compassionate, especially towards Kazan. The only person she doesn’t like is Quentin. She can read him like a book, calling him out on his violent outbursts, figuring out his wife and children left him because he was abusive. She has a knack for getting under Quentin’s skin, which ultimately leads to her death at his hands. There is a touching moment between her and Worth before she dies. She reveals her first name is Helen. He tells her his name is David. They smile at each other as Holloway is about to climb out onto the side of the cube to see if she can find the exit. I think she could see through Worth’s cynicism pretty quickly after he admits to designing part of the cube.

Leaven is pretty obnoxious but becomes more likable the further they travel through the cube. She acts like a brat when others make a stupid comment or don’t completely understand what she’s trying to tell them. However she really is working to help everyone get out. Despite her superior mathematical knowledge, she knows she can’t succeed on her own. The team puts a lot of pressure on her which does make her lash out, although she never breaks down completely. When the time comes she’s there for everybody. Rennes is an arrogant convict who has a reputation for escaping multiple prisons. He’s not around for very long before he gets his face melted off by acid but he certainly leaves an impression. Rennes is actually a pretty interesting character for the narrative because he is set up as the expert in escaping various kinds of confinements. He gives the group some advice to not think about why they are trapped, instead think about only what’s in front of them. As he puts it: “You have to save yourself from yourselves.” Right after that Rennes meets his untimely end. Guess he wasn’t so smart after all.

Finally we have Kazan. The group happens upon Kazan when Quentin opens a ceiling hatch, causing Kazan to fall through. Kazan looks around and declares: “This room is green. I want to go back to the blue room.” Holloway sees that Kazan is mentally disabled and immediately takes him under her wing. Quentin isn’t happy about this. He argues Kazan will only slow them down, further risking their lives. Leaven and Worth clearly agree with Quentin but are ashamed to admit it. In one of Holloway’s finest moments she tells them despite the bleak circumstances they cannot forget they are human beings. They have to remain compassionate, otherwise what’s the point in going on. Kazan doesn’t need to prove anything to his new friends but understands they are arguing over him. Holloway’s death is devastating for him as she was the one to show him the most kindness. Worth steps up to help look after Kazan. Eventually, while Leaven and Quentin are arguing over the numbers on the door, Kazan reveals he is a genius at math. Quentin is condescendingly surprised while Worth and Leaven encourage Kazan to help them escape. Though Kazan doesn’t speak much, he along with Holloway help bring out more compassion in both Leaven and Worth.

What Is The Cube?

Is it an elaborate social experiment? A twisted reality TV game? Is the government behind it? A shadowy corporation? Aliens? We’ll never know! Director Vincenzo Natali has no interest in revealing the true nature of the cube which makes this great film even better. Some will find the ending aggravating but let’s be honest, would an explanation provided within the film really prove to be satisfying. I’m not saying that would ruin Cube. Not at all. It would still be a great movie. However having an ambiguous ending allows for the audience to come up with their own theories.

My theory involves a government conspiracy attempting to eradicate undesirable individuals they deem a threat to the status quo. Quentin is a cop who lashes out and is unable to be controlled by his bosses. Holloway is a conspiracy theorist who may not be so crazy after all. Rennes has escaped multiple prisons, undermining the authority of law enforcement. Worth, being one of the project’s many architects, knows too much about the cube already and isn’t important enough to keep alive. The government may find people who are mentally disabled like Kazan a burden to the state, therefore eradicating him by throwing him into the cube. Leaven is less clear. All we learn about her is she’s a college student. Maybe she’s also an activist of some kind. Part of a group the government have been keeping their eyes on. But this is all just speculation. Even though the point of the movie isn’t about what the structure itself really is, it’s still fun to theorize why these particular people found themselves trapped within the cube.

What I Didn’t Like

The dwindling group discovers the rooms are actually moving. The numbers on the hatches are equations that determine whether a room is safe to enter or not. They discover this after stumbling back into the room with Rennes corpse. Quentin becomes even more furious as he begins beating Worth. Leaven then realizes Quentin must’ve killed Holloway. Worth fights back, telling Leaven and Kazan to run. Worth tosses Quentin through a hatch in the floor, causing Quentin to lose consciousness as he hits the floor of the room below. This leaves Leaven, Worth and Kazan to find their own way out. And they finally do! But just when they’ve found some hope, Quentin returns. He stabs Leaven killing her instantly then stabs Worth in the gut. Worth knows he’s bleeding to death so he uses his last bit of strength to hold Quentin back, saving Kazan in the process. The cube begins to shift again while Quentin is in the doorway. He’s crushed by the shifting cube while Worth bleeds to death inside the cube and Kazan walks out into the sunlight. I love this ending (for the most part)! So why put it in What I Didn’t Like? Because I need to set this up to explain one thing about the last 10 minutes that always bothered me: how Quentin found the others so quickly.

Quentin was passed out while Leaven, Worth and Kazan ditched him to keep moving forward. At this point we know the rooms shift around, so the chances Quentin would be able to successfully track them are slim. Very slim. Also take into account some of the rooms are still booby trapped. Being on his own is much more difficult to navigate the cubes safely than it was working with the others. It comes across as a little rushed to have him abruptly appear right when they find the exit. It’s too convenient for Quentin. Obviously this doesn’t ruin the whole ending. Kazan being the sole prisoner to escape was an interesting move and both Leaven’s and Worth’s deaths were upsetting yet fit with the tone of the story. But I feel like Natali could’ve somehow better explained Quentin’s ability to catch up to the rest of the group at just the right moment. Perhaps show him pretending to be unconscious so he could secretly follow the others to the exit.

 

If you want a really unique movie-going experience, watch Cube! Even though when you boil it down there’s just six characters in one location for 90 minutes this film still manages to be thrilling, intellectually stimulating, and a lot of fun to watch. Not bad for what is basically a B movie. Unfortunately, after Elevated and Cube, Natali’s career went kinda downhill quickly in terms of quality. But I’ll always appreciate him for being the mastermind behind Cube.