Dave Made a Maze

This one won me over as I honestly tried to ignore it after putting it on in the background late at night. I kept coming back to it and being intrigued enough to give it a full spin with the missus. The line, "Did she die, or just turn into a craft project?" was exactly what I needed from this to stay interested. As someone who's slept in a fort of his own creation within the last two years, this spoke to me. I'm a parent as opposed to a man-child but that's not much to brag about.

All the points I'm awarding here are basically to be shared out among all the set designers, prop makers, cardboard wizards and animators who did all that cool creative stuff and made a warehouse full of weird scenes and costumes. The traditional parts of the film - story, characters, dialogue - all sucked. As in, they were so amateurish it became close to unwatchable. Felt like a 90-minute improv show with comics who couldn't wait to go on separate vacations. But, crazy cardboard, woo!

Some interesting visuals - not much else

Feels like some unholy mix of Wes Anderson, One Cut of the Dead, and House of Leaves without really being like any of those works. The lasting impact is of an existential ambivalence, where the unabashed sincerity of the hipster artist is brave yet at the same time umcomfortably cloying. It's as if the film is caught between a children's movie and an indie comedy like Wristcutters, but it's very self-aware of its cornball whimsy and inability to fit in... so does that make it a good movie? Ehh.

Strange and campy humor and cardboard horror. Silly to say the least. Acting is mostly pretty forced and the entire premise and plot was rather unusual. Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but very hard to recommend.

Treats its characters, their relationship squabbling, and human life in general about as seriously as HELLZAPOPPIN', with which it shares much else, firstly a great title card joke before the movie even starts and secondly about thirty more great jokes in often impressively rapid succession but sadly shares not a single showstopping dance number nor even a song which seems like a missed opportunity but hey there's already more invention here than in almost any other American comedy of the tens.

(Michel Gondry's HOUSE OF LEAVES)

Hipster "Cube". Or something like that. Actually, this is such a unique idea that I'm not sure what to call it. Utterly brilliant concept and imaginative set design that maybe doesn't quite hold up over the course of 80 minutes, but is never less than entertaining and frequently a lot more than that. You need to watch this.

"Living in a box"

Not sure. Loved the idea, the set and everything but it wasn't as good as expected in the end.

Dave Made a Maze has buckets of charm and creativity, but I think it fails to land the tone its aiming for. I feel like it could have worked a lot better if the comedy was much dryer and the horror element was milked more, but it's just a little too sickly sweet and the humour pretty much never lands. I do admire its core message though; one which is probably very relatable for many creative types.

points for creativity and execution, that's for sure.

It should have been longer!

Charming and fun.

Dave Made a Maze is weird and whimsical, and an excellent use of of recycled cardboard boxes. The film feels both fresh and familiar, with the impromptu use of puppetry, the booby traps, and the constant questioning of the reality of the situation that the characters find themselves in. The actors do a good job, and what they lack in emotive range, they make up with in comedic timing. The theme of feeling stagnant as an adult was nice, but it was somewhat let down by the ending.

Cardboard! Minotaur! Yey!

What is the point? This is just a concept, with almost no development between the “gee whiz” aspect of the scenario. Completely predictable, with dorky average, cardboard characters worse than the new Jumanji kids.

Top badass moment? Yes, he did. I loved making caves and castles out of boxes, blankets and tables when I was young; this probably explains why I go wild camping as an adult. I’m also ready to publicly admit that I spent £425 this month on role-playing game books; so this film, which is basically Dungeons & Dragons without the funny dice, was always going to be pushing against an open door with me. It doesn’t, literally, go anywhere, but it looks great. 1 decapitation, no cats or chainsaws.

Quite a bit from entirely successful, but how can you say you've seen something that's not close to something you've seen before?

I will admit, i was not expecting much when I went into this one blind... and it surprised me. It is dripping with charm, and you can tell how much love the entire crew poured into making this film. Is it silly as hell? Of course. But it's so FUN!

If you like the movies of Michael Gondry there is a big chance you like this one.

Entertainment: 3/4. Unique concept, but couldn't hold my attention. Spirituality: 0.5/3. Sustainability: 0.5./3.

Gets most of it's points on imagination alone, the story itself was a bit meh. Great way to get the most out of a small budget though.

I've been recommending this to all my 'you just have to see it' friends. Odd, entertaining, and fun.

Fun, indie movie.bthe practical effects and set were pretty impressive

Like an extended episode of Community, but too po-faced to be funny

Has some nice paper mache I guess, but doesn't really deliver on....well, anything.

An extremely unique look at what it means to be an artist and to struggle with the consuming nature of trying to be creative. The premise might not quite fill its running time but definitely worth a watch.

Unique and charming independent fantasy-comedy. Quite impressive what they did with all that cardboard. The script could have used a bit more work though.