Cube

Cop ruins everything and kills everyone and doesn’t know what basic coordinates are. Sky is still blue. When I watched the cube i tried racking my brain on what the button could symbolise. Surely it must mean more than simply a survival tactic. Surely this has SOME meaning and connects to the theme in some way. But that’s where it got me—There is no theme. There’s just a button. This movie failed to engage in its metaphor at all deeper level: it asks you to consider the cube as ‘society’ or ‘life’ but then doesn’t dive deeper into its belief of ‘we are our own prisoners’. To engage in a metaphor you need characters to push it forward, yet the characters tasted like flour. You cannot have a grand metaphor about life and then have characters that are minuscule in their writing. You need to say something, not expect the viewer to piece together some shoddy theme out of nothing but shoestrings and middling dialogue. There is certainly SOMETHING that the directors are trying to say. Something covered in layers and concepts that we never do anything with. You can make the audience work to get to the meaning of your movie, but at least give them something better to work with that isn’t a half broken pickaxe. This movie is very safe. Very, very safe. Society is bad, the woman gets perved on, the cop hits his wife, so on and so forth. What about these characters is interesting? Where is any contrast against the role they were made to play? It felt one-note. The camera work felt nauseating. I understand wanting to make the viewer feel as if they were stuck in the prison with the characters but it just felt sloppy and frantic. Some of the shots were composed with thought put behind them but that doesn’t make up for slamming around the camera like someone can get their grip on it.  The dialogue, as said before, wasn’t good. The best scene in this movie is when they’re all forced to be quiet. The characters felt preachy, especially in the middle part. Why am I listening to someone claiming that ‘the cube is us’ and then not explore more about that. The lines are cheesy and overdone. The acting didn’t help. Overall, there were a few parts I liked. I think it was a good idea to show how the group would operate without the cop. The colors in this movie weren’t bad or lifeless. The effects weren’t all bad. But it still felt like a long drag. All i’m left with is wondering what the button could’ve meant. Because no way does it all mean nothing.