I love Saw for two reasons really-one is the antagonist, and the second is the idea of people trapped together in a maze, forced to work together. The consequences for failure is...well, in Saw's case, not pretty. But we'll talk about why the Saw series broke my heart another day. For now, let's talk about a movie with a similar concept-the Cube.

Six survivors wake up in a room shaped like a cube. Panels on each side lead to an identical room, some of which are filled with traps. The six have no idea how they got there, why they were kidnapped, or how many rooms there are. But if they don't try to escape, they will eventually die from dehydration and starvation.

With a similar and repetitive set design, this movie could have become boring very quickly. Fortunately, the personalities of the captives keep things interesting. Some of the victims could be considered essstential to escape (a cop, a medic, a methameticion, an escape artist) while some of them might not be (a mentally handicapped man, a man who is content to do nothing and die). I could say having these mix of people is contrived, but on the other hand, maybe it is all part of a master plan? Unfortunately we never find out, since the person who created the cube is left a mystery-in this movie, anyway. Randomness also plays a factor. Some characters die right away, others become insane, and the most useless characters suddenly become the most important.

 Unfortunately, this movie does suffer a WTF ending, which is pointless and rather silly. Still, could be worse.

Could be Cube 2.

FINAL GRADE: 4 out of 5. An interesting concept which keeps the audience guessing till the end. It suffers slightly from contrived plot threads, however.