Cube is a 1997 Canadian sci-fi movie directed by Vincenzo Natali. Seven people, who are complete strangers to each other, awaken inside a maze of cubes, having no memory of how they got there. They are forced to work together to escape and, along the way, they have personality clashes as they all come from different cultures.
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2 Production details 3 Sequels 4 Cast 5 External links |
Each cube is either a safe cube, or is trapped with a gruesome device (a "sushi machine" that cuts up the inhabitant into small pieces, a device that sprays highly acidic liquid onto the occupant, and so on). However there are clues to determine which cube is safe or trapped, which Leaven, a smart, mathematically-minded young girl, soon discovers that a small serial-number type plaque is on each cube. Prime numbers appear to be the key to determining the safety of each cube. However, this is not the case for all cubes - it transpires that powers of primes, and soon factorizing primes becomes the key. But the factorization of primes is a difficult task: however Kazan, an autistic savant, can do it.
Soon, they manage to make their way safely to the edge of the cube. They suspend the doctor Holloway outside the cube using their pants, hoping that she will be able to see some way out better, yet Quentin, the apparently good-natured policeman drops her when she is about to fall. After this troublesome event, Quentin begins to make sexual advances to the young Leaven, and Worth and Quentin fight bloodily on his discovery of this. Later, they decide to leave Quentin behind in a mad rush for the exit.
They come across the dead body of The Wren who, previously, brashly entered a cube and was killed. Leaven soon realizes that the sets of numbers on the cubes in fact signify permutations of the cube - the cube is not a static object but instead each individual cube shifts around in the cube. After a few minutes calculuations Leaven discovers that if they would have stayed put where they begun with, they would have made it out to the "bridge cube", a single cube bridging the outer shell of the cube which Worth designed to the inner cube. If they wait for the cube to shift, they will be linked to this bridge cube -- and the outside world.
They do so, and their prospects look hopeful. However they have forgotten about their escape from Quentin, who brutally murders young Leaven with the spike in the bridge cube room door. Worth and Quentin fight again. Quentin is killed as he is stuck between the cube corridor and the outer wall, and the bridge cube begins to rotate again, with Worth still trapped inside, until the next permutation of the bridge cube aligns with the exit (which takes a long time).
Kazan, eventually, makes it out alive. We do not see the outside world, but Kazan walking slowly into the bright light.
Plot summary
Warning: Spoilers followProduction details
The movie was shot on a Toronto soundstage measuring 14 feet x by 14 feet. The rooms colour was changed by sliding panels.Sequels
Cube is followed by the sequel Hypercube: Cube 2 (2002) and Cube Zero (2004)Cast
All characters were named after real prisons:
See also: List of movies, Cinema of Canada
