This film begins with a man named "Ryjkin" (Jasmin Geljo) waking up and finding himself in a symmetrical room with an exit hatch on all four walls along with one on the floor and one on the ceiling. After choosing to go through one of the exists leading into a similar room, he accidentally triggers a mechanism which sprays him with an unknown liquid. At first, he thinks it is just water and being quite thirsty, he proceeds to lick as much of it off of his skin as possible. Minutes later, however, he realizes that the liquid is a type of acid which leads to a gruesome conclusion. Then scene then shifts to a control room where two technicians named "Eric Wynn" (Zachary Bennett) and "Dodd" (David Huband) where Ryjkin's demise is playing out on a computer screen in front of them. Having seen numerous scenes similar to this, neither Wynn nor Dodd are overly surprised. Yet even though Wynn expresses his distaste for this macabre incident, he accepts the corporate explanation that the people within the cubical apparatus are condemned prisoners being given an opportunity for their freedom--if they can carefully negotiate their way through the hazards within this deadly maze. Even so, Wynn still has a number of questions regarding the entire setup and his curiosity is piqued even further when he discovers that one of the prisoners named "Cassandra Rains" (Stephanie Moore) doesn't have the necessary consent form within her files. This prompts even more concern on his part that he is involved in something so terribly horrific that it defies imagination--and that both he and Dodd could suffer from the same fate. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film essentially serves as a prequel to the original movie produced seven years earlier and, as such, provides more details about the mechanism itself. And while this particular film is certainly not bad by any means, I do not believe it is quite as good as its two predecessors and I have rated it accordingly. Average.
