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.
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.