Cube Keeps You Watching: Sci-Fi Thriller Worth a Watch

Each room seems to be the same, with the exception of varied lighting flooding the rooms, and the fact that death awaits in certain cubes, while a brief extension of life lies in others.

That's the premise of the movie "Cube." This limited-release Sci-Fi thriller (1998 U.S.) stars few actors most casting directors would recognize. Despite the poor acting, the film is surprisingly engaging, carried by the premise of a giant cube, built by an unknown entity for an unknown purpose.

Our heroes consist of a group of people who've been snatched from their homes in the dead of night and thrown in separate cubes. The characters find each other and unite to try and find a way out of the monstrous-sized construction.

Led by Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint), a divorced cop, the group goes about devising ways to decide which rooms to avoid and which to enter.

The film's small budget is apparent in its limited but effective special effects.

The Cube is constructed and labeled by numbers. But it's not until Joan Leaven (TV's The Dead Zone's Nicole de Boer), a math student, discovers the meaning of the numbers, that the group believes they can escape.

Throughout the film, the group argues with each other. Quentin is a vengeful cop, full of rage and easy to provoke. He's constantly arguing with Helen Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), a liberal-thinking doctor. Holloway is always trying to protect an autistic man, Kazan (Andrew Miller), from the rest of the group, who are often angered by Kazan's actions and screams. And the man most often the critical eye of the group is David Worth (David Hewlett), a man responsible for building the outer shell of the Cube.

The group's being trapped with the confines of their ever-changing cube rooms is much like Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit."

The characters must work together to overcome their differences if they want to escape before they die of dehydration, exhaustion or murder of each other.