The Abandon

I watched this movie because I like escape room style of movies where you can solve riddles and root for the people entrapped. But with this main character, it was really hard to feel any empathy or root for him because the character is highly dumb, loud and pathetic. I disluked him so much, I was looking forward to him getting more hurt or dying. Whoever wrote this charecter and his ridiculous lines should het another job. Also, this movie brings nothing new to the game besides being dumb, it taked the Idea of cube and puts it into a war scenario, thats all. Save your time and do something more fun like watching paint dry.

No pun intended - this reminds me, that I have to rewatch the ... I'll call it classic movie (this has taken a few notes from) ... called the Cube! I wouldn't say that it is a copy (or uses the same blueprint ... see what I did there?) ... but you can see and feel that it tries to create a similar mood.

Having said that it does try to do things differently - you get a different story and some interesting twists. I assume you can see many things coming before they happen. But still it is suspenseful enough to work its "magic" - well again no pun intended. You may lose track of time too - which might or might not be a pun ... special effects are good. It's a shame it can't keep it up (not an innuendo, but certainly a pun - no matter which side you turn it to ... sorry had to) ... hopefully you are not claustrophobic ... this might be the end of you.

Reviewing and rating this movie isn't straightforward. On the one hand, it's a noble attempt at reformulating the tried and tested high concept single location sci-fi mystery (think Cube, or Circle). On the other hand, it's a jumbled mess of ideas that ultimately lead to an underwhelming and disappointint conclusion. What compelled me to write this review is the need to inject a balanced view amid the overly harsh 1* reviews, and the utterly ridiculous 10* review that I can only assume was written by someone involved with making the movie. It's not terrible - I was intrigued enough to watch the whole thing, and only started to get bored in the final stretch of the 3rd act. Equally, it's not great. But honestly, I applaud the attempt. Here's hoping the director learns from this and comes back with a stronger script for his next feature.

I'm a huge fan of single location movies like Buried or Last Call. However the dialogue in the first 30 minutes of the movie doesn't make any sense. Only after the main character gains a bit of trust with the other party does it start to make sense, and the character development starts, but by then, I had lost a lot of the interest.

It did pick up well enough for me to finish watching the whole movie. Even if it doesn't bring a lot of new things to the table, it's still a decent enough movie that keeps you guessing what the hell is going on (even though that's never the real point of these movies). Don't expect it to be explained to you -- the ending will keep you guessing, and that's fine.

The sci-fi bits and the very few effects of the movie are quite good, but the attempt to mathematically explain what's going is absolutely nonsensical.

The movie feels like they threw Cube, Buried and Last Call into a mixer, but didn't add any other ingredients and forgot to blend or shake it. Still an entertaining watch if you're a fan of the genre.

Okay, so yeah, I watched the whole thing because Jonathan Rosenthal was pretty to look at. But the movie is highly derivative and highly claustrophobic. And it doesn't have enough cleverness to sustain its minimalist setting without long stretches of me shouting "get on with it!"

Once the mystery is resolved, it is a matter of thinking to yourself - "oh, yeah, that was one of the possibilities I thought of while having plenty of time to think while watching this." So it is not really a twist or even a surprise.

The filmmakers get a C for effort. And the lead actor gets a YOWZA for his presence. That averages to a middle of the road movie.