Cubo Zero

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.

I was one of the enthusiasts of the original. It seemed a clever solution to one of filmdoms most persistent challenges: how to stage drama.

Noir is our most basic cinematic model. The core of noir is a universe where capricious fate toys with human destiny in cruel and arbitrary ways. "Cube" cleverly merged a modern noir vision with a solution to the staging problem.

Then along came the sequel which had no understanding of what made the original appealing and important. They turned it into a conventional government plot thriller with all the baggage that carries. Along the way, they introduced some pseudomathematical notions that were bizarre.

If there is anyone on the planet that would know how such a government program would work, it would be me. I wrote a comment about this which triggered a couple dozen messages among the editor of a film magazine, myself and the original author of "Hypercube."

As it happens, the original script was more true to what made the first one work, but it was coopted and changed by the same hack behind this.

So once again, here we have some sort of evil experiment by some agency. In the last one, that was actually a major weapons company. The one clever idea is similar to "Saw," where we watch the watchers of watchers watch. This folding is supposed to impute an evil to us that we see in the maniacal Dennis Hopper impersonator.

One of the intermediate watchers draws comics. This is textbook folding. Not clever, not worthy.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Cube Zero is the third movie in the Cube franchise and rather turns in the direction of the first movie which worked the best, however in this one we follow Eric Wynn portrayed by Zachary Bennett who is working for the company that is accountable for the cube structures. He is questioning if it's morally excusable to work for a company that straight up kills people and he starts to doubt if the things they told him were all true. I think this is a pretty interesting concept and the movie needed to take a new step because just simply putting some characters in cubes with traps again would be probably entertaining but wouldn't bring the franchise much further. So we get to know a little bit more about how it is outside of these cubes and who is responsible for them.

And some people might absolutely hate that idea and some will love it. I personally enjoy it and think it was an interesting and risky step for the franchise to go. Like the other movies this one has some good gore and some pretty nice effects mixed up with some questionable looking CGI, however this movie was released in 2004 and therefore can't be judged too much based on that. One minor complaint I have is that I would have loved to see more of the cubes and their booby-traps themselves and don't spend so much time outside in an underground office because it feels like the character's in the Cube were neglected and therefore aren't as interesting as the ones being in the office.

Overall I think this is a good and entertaining movie and I enjoyed it more than the Hypercube one, however it's still quite a few steps away from the original in terms of quality and enjoyment. [6,5/10]

A perfectly adequate prequel to the first film. This time we see the men who operate the cube, but it doesn't take long to realise that they are still within the system.

This film owes a lot to the identity loss themes seen in Dark City and even the matrix, as the film resolves to show existence as a hierarchical and circular metaphor of continuous control.

This is low budget, but has a dated feeling that the original Cube film did not. Writers and set designers face a lot of pressure to create fresh ideas, and new ideas are sadly lacking here. The horror element is delivered well, but the sci-fi elements are rather tacked on.

(Saw this at Sci-fi London)

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.