naia_zifu

During many points of this film, I found myself sitting there shaking my head in disbelief that I was watching it. A lot of the plot elements (especially where the government is involved) seem ridiculous and unbelievable, even for a movie about giant robots. The robots themselves looked very cool and realistic, though I sometimes missed the cleaner designs of their animated counterparts. I find it a bit odd that the filmmakers would go to such trouble to make the robots look real, and place them into such epic battle scenes, yet try so hard not to take things too seriously. It might've been more effective had they gone for straight drama. I wasn't even trying to compare this to the animated _Transformers: The Movie_, however, until this film lifted a quote directly from its predecessor. If they're gonna invite the comparison, they should at least make sure they measure up well. I would probably buy this when it comes out on DVD just 'cause the visuals are so cool, but I definitely feel the animated version was better and will continue to hold up better over time.

The original is still better, but at least this one is worthy of the _Cube_ name. I enjoyed getting to peek in on the lives of the office grunts who look after the experiment, although some things (weird little food pills being sent up by elevator, for example) were a bit silly. I liked the people in this cube pretty well, most notably the unfortunate chunky guy. Where I think the movie went wrong, though, was in the introduction of the fellow with the weird eye and his minions. I guess they were meant to be scary, but just come off as cheesy and unintentionally funny instead. More effective villains would've definitely helped. This movie, I think, is for the people who liked the original movie, but thought it needed more creative trap deaths.