Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

mark-506 This comedy-drama starts with a neat idea: Dave, a 30-year-old slacker (Nick Thune), builds a whimsical cardboard fort in his apartment. Inside the fort, however, lies a seemingly endless labyrinth which traps him, his girlfriend, and numerous other acquaintances. There are plenty of inventive visuals on display, but writer/director Bill Watterson - no relation to the "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoonist - and cowriter Steven Sears don't know where to take them.The film's MVPs are production designers Trisha Gum and John Sumner and art director Jeff White. What they and their team have accomplished, with what was surely a minuscule budget, is spectacular. Room after cardboard room, the sets amaze and delight. But Watterson's staging is uninspired and Jon Boal's cinematography looks cheap. Mostly, however, the script is to blame: the kernel of a good story is lost, like its characters, in a cardboard maze of unfunny gags and the occasional bit of psychobabble. (There's some symbolic blarney about how the maze represents Dave's creative inertia or something.) James Urbaniak, the poor man's Kyle MacLachlan, is always a welcome presence, though his meddling documentarian character grows tiresome. (Blame the script, not the actor.) Adam Busch is likewise game, but the weak material drags him down. The rest of the cast is unremarkable.I genuinely dislike criticizing a film that was clearly a labor of love for its creators, but Dave Made a Maze was so frustrating that I had to come here to lament its wasted potential. Bravo to the art department, though.

ulric99 Firstly, it's technically a "labyrinth", not a maze...Dave builds a labyrinth in his lounge room from cardboard boxes. His girlfriend comes home and finds a number of boxes put together to make what can best be described as a children's fort. However, it is in fact, a multi-dimensional creation.When people enter the first box, they actually enter a larger than life creation (a bit like a TARDIS where the space is bigger on the inside than the outside).The people who enter want to explore more, only to find that they are being tracked by the Minotaur and, dodging a series of booby traps inside the creation (which take out a few unlucky individuals), there is no blood when they die, just red streamers).This is a very quirky movie and an absolute delight to watch.Ignore the negative reviews and treat yourself to this indie movie and enjoy.

popcorninhell In his seminal book Making Movies, Sidney Lumet states that "all good work requires self-revelation." Taking this to heart, the makers of Dave Made a Maze have created what amounts to a contemplative amuse-bouche. In a word it is delightful – a DYI homage to magical realism that is sure to impress the nominally curious and the casually astute. Furthermore it approaches its absurdist tale with the proper irreverence, at least to a point. It's fun, a lot of fun. Yet much like any hor d'oeuvre it's not a full meal.The movie starts with much of the same flourishes expected of a Luis Bunuel film. Annie (Kumbhani), the long suffering girlfriend of a "tortured artist," comes home to find Dave (Thune) has built a labyrinth out of cardboard in their apartment. Dave has apparently gotten lost in his own creation, thus after a gaggle of friends come over to inspect his work in progress, they enter the maze and find themselves at the mercy of impossibly expansive corridors, elaborate booby-traps, and cutesy creatures made of paper.To say that Dave Made a Maze is a pastiche of a pastiche wouldn't even begin to explain the film's wild imagination. Hidden underneath Alice in Wonderland-like decor are clever references and callbacks of everything from Greek mythology to 80's fantasy adventure films to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to even obscure Hal Hartley movies. Director Bill Watterson takes this jumble of influences and hot glues it all together with a keen eye, which is always furthering the central theme. He even goes so far as to create elaborate visual metaphors in everything from playing cards and geek culture t-shirts to capture the trappings and growing frustrations of the millennial set.Yet while Bill Watterson and Art Director Jeff White are clearly the stylists here, everyone including the nonplus actors, wind up feeling like nothing more than set decorations. Aiding in the rescue effort is the impossibly droll Harry (Urbaniak) and his skeleton crew of documentary filmmakers. They along with Dave's best friend Gordon (Busch) naturally provide the largest belly laughs and the most urbane quips. But the script also provides them with the largest shield of constant eye-rolling detachment. A detachment that extends to the entire cast in fact, since everyone is walking around the magical maze like they're characters from Mission Hill (1999-2002). But in Harry's case he's got a literal camera crew guaranteeing he'll be drowning in bathos before he'll be getting killed by a smoke-breathing cardboard Minotaur.Since no one approaches anything with any sense of peril, audiences are forced to downshift to viewing the film as a nifty little parable with – and I can't state this enough – truly imaginative filigree. Of course those looking to challenge themselves intellectually will once again be disappointed as the said parable is about as obvious as a Jesus metaphor in a Superman movie. Though in Dave Made a Maze's defense, the structure of myths and legends, for which this movie takes a lot of its story elements, do have the same sense of clarity. Additionally since we're seeing things largely from Annie's point-of-view, the film subtly adds a new dimension to the process, however slight. One can't help but wonder if there was just one more tweak, one more re-write, Dave Made a Maze could have been a subversive assault on the trope of the sulking, self-involved, misunderstood artist.But because we're set in the well established mold of self-revelation, and because we're surrounded by insufferable characters who are always above-it-all, Dave Made a Maze ends up being just as slight and disposable as a brown paper bag. Watch it if for no other reason than to get on the ground floor of a uniquely talented director's career. Otherwise I say skip it.

marklunn-27828 10 out of 10 review those who gave it high ratings and especially the one who said it was the best film of 2017 What have you people been smoking it's terrible i would have rated it zero if it was an option i've seen a lot of bad movies this year i never leave reviews but this film deserves my time if it saves people from wasting theirs. Worst acting ever i only managed 15 minutes of the film and it left me feeling confused how this got released i'll never know in fact i might throw a film together when i get an hour spare can't be worse than this Rant over.