Cube Zero

One question I always have about these cube movies is, how does throwing a boot into the empty room tell you it's safe or not? This feels like rehash from the other sequels. But, in those films we discover some traps are triggered by other things, not by weight, or movement, or sound, but heat.

After this scene, one man exclaims perhaps it was triggered by heat or sound, but that isn't possible because the boot hitting the floor was pretty loud. Most likely it was triggered by a camera picking up a human form in the middle of the room.

After being disappointed by the follow through of part 1 and 2, I looked forward to a prequel finally making some sense of all this, and being a enjoyable film. Kind of like what Hellraiser 3 Bloodline did for that series.

Now we have 2 workers, overseeing this project to some capacity. We never see their higher ups, but we do see a higher level of command in part 2.

They seem to not mind too much what is going on, for they believe they men and women inside the cube are convicted criminals.

We know this to not be the truth at all.

The fact that in part 1 they followed a puzzle of numbers, primes in particular, in part 2, well I don't remember what they followed then, 5 dimensional cubes are funny that way. BUt, in this one, they find a similar puzzle, but this time in sets of letters.

For lack of ingenuity, and originality, I scoff at the simplicity of the parallel plots at this point, but I trudge on, without judgment... keeping my mind on the third exit.

"When the rooms align what's the first thing that happens?" "Clean Sweep" Which is what we saw at the very end of part 2... you ever wonder why at the end of part 2 when the girl, company employee plant in the cube, escapes the cube, with some sort of plumb device around her neck intact, as the cube seems to "clean sweep" itself into oblivion, they kill her? Did you think that question was going to be answered in the next movie? Do you still think it's going to be answered, in Cube Zero? Owen reaching the exit room reminds me a lot of the ending of Cube 1, I suppose that was the point.

Exit Procedure is very Nazism isn't it.

Anyways, I noticed later on they weren't even waiting for the boot to hit the floor before entering a new room, that didn't make a whole lot of sense, although the sound vibration death was quite cool.

Pretty nice ending, the way Wynn becomes Kazan-ized. Makes you wonder just how Kazan got the way he was doesn't it? People ask what is the point of this movie, or this trilogy, or franchise... and to my knowledge there is no point. Unless you look for a more anamorphic point. And that is the point within.

There is no great moral here, no blatant and obvious tell tale morality. No, be good or this could happen to you, there is no rhyme nor reason. Perhaps the only point to be gleamed from such an adventure is thus.

The CUBE is the mind. The traps are desires, ignorance, apathy, and the like. We are lab rats in consciousness, trying to get from birth to the white light at the end, without falling into the traps of our own egos if you will.

At least, that is my perspective.

Well, after glancing over a few of these comments...there aren't a lot of people who actually like this film. Which I am personally quite surprised at as me and my boyfriend found this film to be the best of the Cube series.

I got the Cube box set for Christmas and I always look forward to watching a good movie. I had already seen Cube 1, so not much shocked me...bearing in mind, the first time I watched it, I was fairly disturbed...putting myself in their position...waking up in a huge cube not knowing how you got there.

Then there was Cube 2, not much happened in this film...I didn't like the fact there weren't any traps as good as the first film.

Then there is Cube Zero...a film that can get very confusing in places, but pieces itself together gradually, and actually explains WHY these people are in the cube, how they got there, and what happens when/if they get out. In Cube Zero, there are 2 guys hired to watch over the people in the Cube...they have files on what looks like everyone who has ever been in the Cube...you ask yourself "why would anyone want to watch over a bunch of people dieing in a cube?"...well you find that out also.

I personally think that the makers of the 'SAW' series got some of their ideas from the Cube series. I mean, when you think about it...strangers waking up in a room, not knowing how they got there at first, having to find a way out of this rooms else they'll die. Pretty similar scenarios if you ask me.

I'm not going to go into too much detail, as I don't really want to confuse people...but it's advised that you definitely must see the first one to make a connection to Cube Zero.

The cube movies are the most inventive and satisfying creations in budget horror films today.

The first film is still in my top ten list and is a destined to be classic. I was a little disappointed by the second film which took a much more of a sci fi turn.

But this film returns to the grittiness of the first. Also being that we get to see the observers of the cube more, many connections (mostly to the first film) and secrets are revealed.

Many people say that they didn't like this because it jumps around out of the cube so you can't really get connected with the people in the cube. But honestly, that story has already been done, to perfection in the first cube film. This film is more about the button men who work at the cube.

This movie is awesome and is a perfect sequel to the original, and far more superior than the first sequel.

i just finished watching it and taught it was great to have a perspective from observers outside of the Cube for once .i read some other user comment one especially saying the cube as not been ameliorated uplifted .well how could it be more advanced when the movie happens before the original cube.i also liked the fact that in this one you get the general idea on how and why people end up in the cube.Good death traps all around as usual ,groovy atmosphere a good film well done with a bunch of unknown actors that play there roles in a credible manner considering the type of film this is.i enjoy the less mainstream thriller horror pictures lately always more original than all those block busters remake from the good 70's movies which needed none of that remake bull@#@$ all together it was very entertaining i give it a 7.5 out of 10

Following the release of Cube 2: Hypercube (2003), and playing off the alleged success of the original Cube (1998), Director Ernie Barbarash takes the liberty of bringing us the third installment in the trilogy, the prequel Cube Zero.

Deep in the bowels of a giant and faceless institution, time and place unknown, two low-ranking operators, Wynn (Zachary Bennett) and Dodd (David Huband) sit and observe on monitors the behavior of people that have been placed in a giant network of cubic chambers, some of which are rigged with death traps. Told that the people they are observing are convicted felons who chose this horrific and deadly ordeal over a lethal injection, these observers have had no problem with their jobs until Wynn, a mathematical genius, discovers that one of the prisoners, a woman named Cassandra (Stephanie Moore) never agreed to be put inside the Cube. Suddenly it's realized that perhaps their "jobs" are not what they seem, and that they may be part of something deeply sick and twisted...

For people that have seen and enjoyed the original Cube, this prequel will probably not be to your liking. It's not that the story does not have potential; it's simply that the first Cube film never needed to be expanded on. Standing alone, it is a neat little psychological thriller with very interesting concepts and a certainty about its own message. It was also nicely self-contained. The problem with Cube Zero is that it destroys some of the mystique of the original, attempting to answer questions with more questions but only really resulting in making a mess of what never needed fixing.

What this new film has to offer, which is questions about the psychological nature of authoritarianism and the banality of evil, certainly are good questions to be raised, but probably should have been done so on their own merits, rather than as a continuation of a film that had no such aspirations.

Having said this, the other traits of the film, such as acting and direction and writing, are not awful. There is a bleak, dark look to the film akin to such film noir as 'The Matrix' and 'Dark City', and they have certainly managed to recapture the claustrophobic feeling of the first Cube. Unfortunately for Barbarash, these are not enough positive qualities to save it.