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Saturday, October 31, 2009

Cube (released in 1997) - Now a cult movie

Imagine a movie in which you see a set of characters being put in a weird setting where they can get killed by sudden moves, where there is no recollection of why they are placed in that location, and where answers need to be figured out, and tested out one by one (and where figuring out the puzzle incorrectly can result in serious injury or death). It would almost seem like the viewer only knows as much as any of the characters, and even the characters keep on changing personalities through the movie. Combine that with the movie being made by a newbie director, and being made on a low budget, and you can consider such a movie to be a 'blink and miss' kind of movie. Movies like this come and go, and you won't miss much.
Well, Cube was nothing like that. The movie was a decent commercial success, including overseas (especially Japan and France) and is now considered a cult hit. The movie inspired 2 more movies - Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) and the prequel Cube Zero (2004). It was also nominated for a few awards (not the Academy awards though). The movie was a real low budget one, and had some complex mathematics involved if the viewers wanted to figure out what the logic being used inside the cube were.



Cube is the story of a group of people who find themselves inside a white room, cube shaped, with no idea of why they are there. When they compare their professions, there does not seem to be any commonality between them, with people being a police officer, a doctor, and so on. They resolve to move as a group and to try to escape, but are foundering about what to do. There are 6 doors in the room, one in each wall, one in the ceiling, and one in the wall. The doors lead to more rooms, and problematically, some of the rooms are booby trapped; entering could lead to a painful death - as happens to one of them when he enters a room and is sprayed in the face with acid that kills him.
The set of people are facing 2 main issues
- Quentin, the police officer and the one who seemed to be the most responsible is losing his head, and attacking the others in the group. On the other hand, Dr. Holloway, who seemed to be the most unstable at the beginning, begins to show a great deal of stability as the movie progresses
- The mathematics involving prime numbers to figure out which cube was a trap or not was complicated enough (until the idiot savant Kazan shows his great mathematical talent for doing these calculations), but then they learn that the cubes are also on the move, doing a complete movement before returning to their original position, and that the timeframe to escape is limited.

Cube (The Film) released in 1997, now a cult classic

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