If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

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 best thing about this movie is the sets. They are insane! But the movie itself is not that good and is not really a horror movie, it's more of a comedy. The main problem with it was the characters talking like hipsters all the time. I actually used to hang out with a group of friends who would have loved this... and I can already bet they've seen it five times already. AT LEAST!But not a 2 or 3 like other reviewers are saying. The set design alone is worth a 5. If you are hipster watch it, if not, you may not like it.

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.

These good reviews are really written by the friends and family of whoever made this thing !!!! wt ever u do just don't even think of watching it go do something else there is nothing to see in this thing. nothing. not even a beautiful actress. stupidity is all there is. you know wt watch the 1st 22 minutes of this so-called a ((movie)) and say something to the review that says its the best 2017 movie .. i don't know can we report that person ??