Scrolling deep into the never-ending list of options to watch on one of our various streaming services, my girlfriend came across a movie with a bizarre premise about how a man created a cardboard maze and could not get out. Needless to say, it caught our attention. And with little to go on other than a few positive reviews, we decided to take a chance and see what it would entail. It ended up being a risk I’m ecstatic that we took.

Pros

• Quirky comedy that mostly works

• Set designs are fantastic

• Budget special effects work to the film’s charm

• Decent acting from the mostly-unknown cast

• Less than 90 minutes long

Cons

• A few moments in the film certain questions are raised about the magical nature of the fort that are never really answered

• Some jokes don’t land

Plot & Thoughts

Dave (Nick Thune) is a frustrated creative type who has started numerous projects, but he never really found the inspiration to finish them (I can relate). One day, he finally comes up with something as his magnum opus: a maze within a cardboard fort. His girlfriend, Annie (Meera Mohit Kumbhani) returns from her business trip to find said fort in the living room of their apartment, but Dave is nowhere to be seen as he’s apparently trapped within the small fortress he’s built. Obviously, Annie is a little nonplussed about the situation and doesn’t really understand why Dave won’t come out or why he won’t let anyone into his fort.

After a few more of his friends come by to provide a little advice or see if they can help the situation, it takes very little time for a whole crowd to arrive in the apartment; all of whom are eager to get inside the fort. There’s even a documentary film crew in the room with a curious interest in the situation. Despite Dave’s warnings that it’s not safe, Annie gets fed up with the situation and she leads the crew in to extract him, but it soon turns out that the place is as dangerous as Dave had suggested.

The film can be pretty easily dissected into three acts. Act I takes place in the apartment and people gathering to look at the maze. Act II is about exploring the maze and looking for Dave. Act III is about escaping the maze with their lives. Act I is the slower part of the film where characters are introduced and gives you some insight into the humor of the film. The jokes themselves are not offensive, but they also aren’t the most laugh-out-loud funny either. The strength of the first act is just in how it presents the mystery and magic of the maze to keep you interested through its slower moments. Even though nothing significant was happening for the first twenty minutes, I was still intrigued by the whole scenario. When everyone goes into the maze, the movie really gets going because that’s when the amazing set design and quirky humor really gets to shine. There is so much cardboard in this film, it will give your eyes paper-cuts. Even if the humor is not landing with you, I would recommend sticking with the movie just to see the sets the filmmakers created. The simplest rooms look impressive. It only gets better when the magic of the maze starts getting wild and people start dying in spectacular fashion.

Dave Made a Maze has the “horror” tag attached to it on the streaming service we used to watch it, and I know I mentioned that people start dying, but I would argue it is anything but a horror movie. It’s a comedy that isn’t necessarily focused on the humor, but on the charm of something as childishly playful as a cardboard fort. Humor plays a big part in the film and everything, but the jokes are more around the fantastical scenario and how most people seem perfectly okay that there is a massive fort in an apartment with cardboard booby traps and sentient beasts within it. Annie is the straight man of the bunch who reacts to it all with an appropriate amount of disbelief and surprise but is not hysterical or obnoxious with the fact that it makes no logical sense. Eventually, she even gets in on the joke a little bit. Dave Made a Maze taps into that nostalgic memory of being a kid and using your imagination to create a world that is fantastic and wild out of something as inane as cardboard, which I think is why the somewhat accepting attitude of everyone works really well. It’s almost as though they all understand Dave’s dilemma and what it means to have that imagination, but nothing really built or accomplished to fulfill it.

There are a few moments in the film that I could criticize, though it didn’t really bother me much. The magical nature of the fort is brought up, and the stakes are raised, but it doesn’t always make sense or it isn’t thoroughly explained. The characters give some explanations and exposition about the situations, but you just have to take their word for it because it’s all a little absurd. If you have trouble giving up your suspension of disbelief or if you don’t find the comedy very funny, there is a caveat: the film is only 87 minutes long. While I would find it hard to believe you don’t find anything worthwhile in Dave Made a Maze, at least it will not overstay its welcome.

TL;DR

Dave Made a Maze was a pleasant surprise. It’s been a while since I had seen something that stood out as a rather unique, cheap, independent project that so obviously had some passion behind it. It’s not a perfect film and you certainly have to suspend your disbelief a little to accept everything that happens. However, I think that if you approach it with an open mind, the charm of the Dave Made a Maze will win you over and transport you into the fort-building days of childhood.