CUBE
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Trimark/ Cube Libre Director: Vincenzo Natali Writer: Vincenzo Natali, Andre Bijelic, Graeme Manson Cast: Nicole deBoer, Nicky Guadagni, Wayne Robson, Maurice Dean Wint
In his existentialist work "No Exit"--which may have been the inspiration for "Cube"--playwright Jean-Paul Sartre conveys the theme that "Hell is other people." In that drama first produced in 1944, a valet brings three characters into an elegant, windowless room. Each is dead and will spend eternity with the others. Each has a distinct character--a cowardly womanizer; a socialite adultress; a jealous lesbian. Each is thwarted and held in check by the others. While "No Exit" may not be the great play which some consider it, it was a thematic breakthrough in its time.
The subject is no longer a new one though there is room for an imaginative film team to cast an engaging production. "Cube" is not such a creation. The claustrophobic film is inhabited by six uninteresting individuals who'd have you climbing the walls in 90 minutes, much less an Sartrian eternity, and in fact the movie provides its own evidence of this.
In Vincenzo Natali's concept, six people inexplicably find themselves imprisoned in a set of cubes, a diabolical construction designed to test their ingenuity and, more important, their teamwork in calculating an escape. With their minds curiously concentrated, would they be capable of working together, or would their conflicting personalities drive them further to a slow death by starvation and thirst? To raise the ante, the cubes are booby-trapped. While moving from one unit to another, the reluctant tenants could be eviscerated by a score of knives, sent tumbling down a bottomless pit, or severely burned. By pooling their natural talents, however, the six could conceivably make successful departures into the sunlight.
The actors are bogged down with melodramatic posturings excessive to the point of caricature. Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint), in particular, owns a pair of eyes whose very gaze would strike terror in the heart of a lion, but his fiery look is so fixed throughout the narrative that it becomes laughable. Wint plays the role of a cop and therefore a natural leader, but one whose hostilities are so rampant that he is unable to contribute constructively to the group. He is irritated particularly by Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), a doctor at a free clinic whose liberal views consign her, in the cop's vision, as a bleeding heart. Firing off a stream of invectives, he informs her that she and her family would not even be alive if it were not for the ruthless actions of the police forces. Politically separated, the two become instant enemies, with Quentin labeled by others in the group as a Nazi.
Those who contribute to the group's survival include Leaven (Nicole de Boer), a mathematical genius who, like Max Cohen in Darren Aronofsky's movie "Pi" believes there's a pattern to everything. As Worth, David Hewlett feels some guilt that he has unwittingly contributed to the building of the Picasso-like prison, and at first resigns himself to dying therein as he feels he has no purpose in life. Rennes (Wayne Robson) uses his skill as a man who has escaped from prison seven times while Kazan (Andrew Miller), an autistic young man, surprises the group with his savant calculations.
Its lame dialogue and flat plot notwithstanding, "Cube" does enjoy superior special effects for a low-budget job, chief of which is an opening scene of a man whose body falls apart into neat slices and tumbles to the floor without a whimper. The physical layout is impressive: a progression of cubes of varying colors which Rubik would have a tough time negotiating and whose perils are represented in part by sinister colors, with red as the most intimidating.
With all its limitations, Mr. Natali's production heralds good contributions in the future if he can more closely model himself after horror-master David Cronenberg. No other director can touch Cronenberg's portrayal of the intensity of human frailty and decay: the technique of giving corporeality to anger, disease, dread and hope with films like "Dead Zone" (about a man able to see the end of life in anyone he touches), "Videodrome" (which depicts how films and TV alter our notions of reality), and "The Fly" (a screwball romance about the kinship of freaks with the rest of us). "The Cube," by contrast," merely puzzles.
Not Rated. Running time: 90 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
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