Spoiler Discussion
1. The escape artist dying first is sweet irony and I couldn’t stop internally laughing at the absurdity about it. Especially, if like Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint) kept insisting after the death, that everyone in the Cube had a purpose. How is the guy with the purpose of knowing how to escape going to die first? That’s funny.
On a separate note- Quentin’s insistence on the role theory highlights his ableism early on when he constantly neglects Kazan (Andrew Miller). If he genuinely believed in the theory, he would be forced to admit that Kazan had a skill that could be utilized. But he explicitly rejects that idea and is the only one to constantly denigrate Kazan. It makes the scenes at the end of Quentin desperately trying to use Kazan more despicable, and along with his treatment of the others in the group made me genuinely hate the character.
2. Worth’s (David Hewlett) decision at the end of the movie feels out of place and is a huge point of frustration. Early on in the movie, when tested by Quentin, he explicitly wants to live and voices the truth of his cynicism. Then he constantly works hard to live the whole movie, going as far to harm and “kill” Quentin. Then decides he doesn’t want to live? Maybe- if the film had shown him being more and more reluctant or indicating that he had given up faith, this would’ve been fine- but the change felt out of place.
Then suddenly Quentin somehow is actually alive and manages to stumble to the same room the rest of the group is in. This is after being dropped down and being injured AND having no method of knowing which room to go to. So he was just running though every room, with no way to test them, hoping he’d survive and find the group to escape? Okay yeah. Sure.
The worst part about both of these events are that they cause Leaven’s (Nicole de Boer) death too. I’m not annoyed at the death – I’m annoyed that it didn’t feel like it realistically should’ve happened. Both of these things happen at the very end of the movie, and don’t ruin the film thematically, but made the film feel less solid than I thought it could’ve been.