Movie Review: Cube (2023)
Cube is a Japanese horror remake of a film of the same name originally released in 1997. This one was written by Vincenzo Natali and Kôji Tokuo, and directed by Yasuhiko Shimizu. We have published reviews here for the original film, Cube²: Hypercube (2002), and Cube Zero (2004). This new remake has a lot of the same characteristics as the original; some of which are good, and some not so much.
The premise here is the same. There are several people trapped inside a strange maze of rooms in which every room looks identical and has a hatch that can be opened in the center of each wall, the roof, and the floor in which you can travel to the next room. Each room may also come with the surprise of a deadly trap that can kill you upon entering in gruesome ways.
Much like in the original film, there really isn’t a lot happening aside from the group going from room to room trying to find the exit. We did enjoy the gore and inventive kills that happened to some of the less-fortunate people. The special effects were really well-done, and the CGI was good. There were also some interesting character backstories, but also some characters that weren’t that interesting at all. We do think that the acting in this was good, and it would have been really apparent in a film like this if it wasn’t. As far as the writing overall is concerned, we just felt like it was lacking too much of its own identity.
That isn’t necessarily the fault of the filmmakers. It’s just one of those concepts that sounds really awesome on paper, but doesn’t translate well to film unless something really drastic happens to make it more engaging, which was the same problem with the original film. There is some drama that happens between characters, and there are some neat kills from some of the traps, but that alone isn’t enough to really keep the audience engaged. It would have been nice if the remake stepped out of the bounds of the original concept and script and added some more depth and background. The writers had such a great blank slate to begin with and should have taken more liberty with it instead of playing it safe.
Overall, Cube is one of those classics that is hard to really get wrong, but we feel like for a modern take, there could have been a lot more imagination used. There are a million ways that this film could have gone with a fresh group of filmmakers, and it didn’t stray far from the original story at all. We still enjoyed seeing a modern version, but it lacked its own originality and identity. We would definitely still recommend this version of the film to fans of the original or even a new viewer who doesn’t want to watch one from 26 years ago, as it was pretty much a facelift of the original, but a really good facelift.
Cube released on April 11 exclusively on Screambox, so head over and give it a watch over at https://www.screambox.com/!
Trailer:
