There are two ways of making a good remake: make it better or make it different.
Cube failed at both. It was not interesting, not innovative and the special effects were laughable - apparently people there have no internal organs.Being perfectly honest, the only good thing was the acting. I am amazed how the actors were able to deliver a solid performance, when most characters had ridiculous arcs and out of the blue quick last minute changes of heart.
I think the worst crime of this movie was the fact it was simply boring. There were hardly any deaths nor traps shown. The ones we got were as basic as they can get.
There is nothing Cube 2021 can offer that Cube 1997 did not already deliver, so why bother watching?
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A bit predictable...
First things first, I have not seen the original so this will have no comparison whatsoever.I don't really have much to say about this, to be honest. Initially, I was excited. I had watched the trailer and had high expectations because of it, along with the fact that I'm familiar with most of the actors in this film.
But ultimately, it fell flat.
Visually, it was great. The set was amazing, and the acting was good. They all played their characters well, despite not having much to work with because this of course all takes place in a cube. It was clear the type of people they all were. But, it sometimes felt repetitive. Like yes, we know you hate young people, but you don't have to complain about them every five minutes. And I feel like I've seen Okuda Maskai play similar characters before - is it just me, or is he typecasted to play roles where he's a bit crazy...?
The only other problem was that it was so predictable. Like I mentioned above, it was made clear what type of lives they all lived which made it easy to guess everyone's outcome. Because of that, it sucked the fun out for me, unfortunately. It was also bizarrely long for a film which covers so little situations and is constricted to one location.
Maybe watching this again and also the original will change my opinion though. Either way, I'm not sure who I'd recommend this to - I assume fans of the original would be curious to form their own judgement. And also if you're a fan of any of the actors. I was initially only interested because of Suda Masaki (but any project with Takumi and Masaki is always a plus in my books).
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This review may contain spoilers
THE ACTING WAS ON THE POINT
If you havent watched other cube movies like me , trust me you are probabl gonna be satisfied with this one...I really loved the way every single actor made exceptionally good jobs while portraying the characters.
i havent seen any cube movie before and honestly this one was intense for me. I really loved the calm thrill , i really loved how this movie showed how people react when they face situations like this. some goes mad , some tries to find quik solutions , some of them are unexpected heros and some of them sees this inescapable thing as a chance to hate this world even more and just let the craziness inside them wake...
SPOILER ALERT
MASAKI OKADA WAS INSANE FOR THAT ACTING. as I saw him as the silly loser guy a lot in a lot of works , I found him so cute at the start yet sensed something when he accidentally hurt the grumpy old man- DAMN I NEEDED TO STOP THE FILM FOR A MOMENT TO PROCESS HIS SCARED ATTITUDE TURNING INTO AN EVIL SMILE PLS. his scene with masaki suda was also intense. both actors were just doing such a great job right there. I was speechless and the movie made me lose sleep because it felt so intense.
and masaki suda's charachter had a great story , the bond between him and the little boy was so special to me , it broke my heart a lot during the whole thing and also warmed it :(
I really saw this movie as a physcilogical work on people's behaviour in such a desperate situation. it was interesting and realistic for me.
like I said before , every single person delivered their roles so well that I thought what made this movie so intense for me was the acting skills of the actors.
my only dissapointment is that , the reasoning for masaki okada's character going all crazy and evil somehow didnt feel enough even tho it made sense. but his anger , his way of killing was so intense for that little explanation giving to us.
however , i think it still made sense and I was really impressed by masaki okada one more time. he was so succesful for that evil turn , even tho him going evil wasnt suprising for me the way he delivered that role made it so intense and caused me to lose my sleep
shortly , I really loved this movie. for me its deeper than most of the comment section thought. If you havent watched the cube movies other than this , i have no doubt that you are gonna enjoy it. just give it a try
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As a Remake, it was mid at best
As someone who have watched the original trilogy when I was a kid, there was a lot of expectation and mystery-loss for me. This remake though hardly offer more substantial plot or fundamentally tangible compared to the original.For someone who haven't watched the original might find this movie effective for them as it covered mostly all the basics of the original and delivered a satisfying ending. But in the end, it did not exceed or even reach the standard of the 1997 film.
For one, it was very dragging. 20 minutes in and there's hardly anything tangible happening. For a setting of mostly similar walls of cubes, they took their time showcasing dead air and blank space. They could fit a lot of things in it and it should be a dead give away that themovie offers less than the original one, which it proved. There's less rooms, they copied most of the concept and even make it less complex than the original one.
The casting at first look made me question if they were casted well or they just get in through a connection. But apparently it was a writing issue. They were only given little and they made most of it which in the end made sense, but still lacking when you currently watch it.
The writing was lacking. It was self serving at most and I think there's more potential if they picked better characters, and made them well. The characters actions feels off sometimes and the lines were a little bit lacking.
Cinematography wise, it was good in the eye. The effects were decent, though they're pretty basic too. There were some weird shots and camera sequences, sometimes the change of color hurts the eye---I'm still waiting for its relevance though---but mostly with the limited space, they were able to give good cinematography
The sound directory was nothing phenomenal and sometimes they give way more spoilers to the story. There were also times where it overpowered the scene but it only happened a couple of times.
Plotwise, it was mid and bearable. It satisfied me but mostly because I was watching it in 2x speed.
It could have been better but at least it was not terrible.
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This review may contain spoilers
repetitive and sluggish
In the remake of the Canadian film, six of varying ages and backgrounds find themselves locked and confined in a mysterious cube shaped room. They do not have any ideas where they are and decide to escape. They need to work with one another and decipher the code needed to exit the cube.The movie could be considered as being one of the pioneers of the now-infamous torture porn genre, pre-dating films like Saw and Hostel that have exploited the idea so much with countless sequels, spin-offs, and rip-offs over the years.No more talking. No more guessing. Don’t even think about nothing that’s not right in front of you. That’s the real challenge — you’ve gotta save yourselves from yourselves....
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La boucle est bouclée, encore et encore...
C’est en me faisant une rétrospective Masaki Suda que j’ai eu comme une impression de « déjà-vu » avec ce film de 2021. Mon présentiment ressemblait à un passage d’une pièce à une autre, tout en rentrant toujours dans la même, et cela sans jamais trouver la sortie. Et c’est en voulant chercher le lien sur « le dieu Internet » entre As the Gods Will et Cube (ceux qui ont vu les deux comprendront) que je me suis rendu compte que j’avais déjà vu ce film il y a bientôt… 30 ans.Et oui. Dans une autre vie, avant d’être passionné par le drama japonais, je faisais un cursus mathématique et découvrais par la même occasion, en 1997, Cube sur les écrans. Presque dix ans avant Numbers, la série américaine, le Canadien Vincenzo Natali réalisa cet hommage aux mathématiques et inventa du coup le concept d’escape room « en live » (avant, c’était du point & click, mais ça, c'est de la préhistoire). Bien sûr, depuis Running Man (1982) de Stephen King, rien de nouveau dans le survival game. Chacun dévoilait déjà sa personnalité dans un jeu de la mort, et en 2021 comme en 1997, ce n’est pas l’ultraviolence des scènes gore qui devrait attirer le spectateur. D’autant plus que même un évidage de tronc ne provoque pas des litres de sang à l’écran dans cette version de 2021, la rendant presque aseptisée.
L’avantage d’avoir complètement oublié l’original, et n’étant pas un cinéphile, je me contenterai, comme 99,9 % des spectateurs de 2025, de regarder Cube avec l’œil des années 2020, et seulement celui-ci. Donc pas de déversement de haine de ma part pour un massacre de l’œuvre originale, la note moyenne sur ce site en est surement déjà la conséquence.
Pas de déversement non plus de haine pour un massacre des mathématiques. La (ou les) cellule(s) est/sont décorée(s) par l’éponge de Menger, et le design est donc tout à fait dans le thème, voire classieux. En se concentrant bien, on comprendra les allusions aux nombres premiers, aux coordonnées cartésiennes, au Rubik’s Cube et bien sûr aux nombres fractals, hyper à la mode dans les années 90. Entre vulgarisation et concepts quand même perchés, vous ne serez toutefois pas trop perdus. Surtout pour additionner 3 chiffres avec Masaki Suda. Car si Cube (2021) n’apporte rien au niveau du scénario, il permet tout de même de voir réunis cinq acteurs de haut rang dans la même pièce durant deux heures, même si c’est toujours la même. Alors qu’on serait prêts à payer une fortune pour les voir sur une même scène dans une pièce kafkaïenne ou d’Albert Camus, on a ici la chance de les voir jouer sans autre artifice qu’eux-mêmes, la comédie humaine. Certes, on comprend rapidement que ce film et leurs rôles sont purement alimentaires, ou peut-être un hommage, mais il faut bien nourrir les enfants et les plateformes de streaming. Leur cachet a dû être inversement proportionnel au budget décors, réutilisé à l’infini, mais ça valait le coup de les réunir.
Bien sûr, les révélations de leur passé sont complètement bidon, voire spoilées dès les dix premières minutes, tant la mise en scène à la japonaise sait trop bien le faire. Le rôle de Watanabe Anne est assez vite compris, tant elle est absente des événements. Les sous-entendus du jeune garçon face au grand-père, ou à son onii-chan de circonstance en la personne de Masaki Suda, et les flash-back sans aucune subtilité de ce dernier nous font assez vite comprendre les enjeux sociétaux de l’œuvre. Bien sûr, ils n’ont rien à voir avec les maths, mais en tant que professeur, et malgré tout le manque de finesse dont fait preuve l’œuvre, ils sont tout aussi importants, si ce n’est fondamentaux, dans le métier. Cette fractalisation de la vie d'un homme adulte, qui se répercute sur le futur adulte qu'est l'enfant, à l’infini, fait écho à l’infinité des concepts abordés. Si vous passez à côté en ne voyant qu’une énième « jeu de la mort » dans ce film, forcément l’œuvre vous paraîtra aussi creuse que le cube de Menger, qui, par son infinité de trous, ne pèse rien.
Ce paradoxe fait écho à un film bourré d’acteurs talentueux, mais tellement plein de trous qu’il en devient vide de talent. La boucle est bouclée.
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