User reviews

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)

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.

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.

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.

i only gave it a 7 out of 10 because,well,all cube films are really just B movies ain't they-heh... That said i have enjoyed them.They have an interesting concept,plenty of gory deaths,and like the series or not you cant help wanting to know more about the workings of the cubes..."who built them?","why were they built?",and "how do they choose the people who go inside them?", are probably most viewers main questions,and like any decent films of this genre,"they do not tell you" lol...Or do they? In cube zero one of those questions at least is partially answered,but not having headed this under spoiler alert heading i wont say which :P

The fact that they keep the viewer guessing the answers to those questions is a credit to the makers and although i would hope when they get fed up of making them that all will be revealed,i have a sneaking suspicion that they wont ever tell us,as to do so will stop 90% of the audience from bothering to watch future episodes in the saga and i am sure they realize by now that its a small gold mine keeping the series of cube films alive and kicking.

To summarize,Cube Zero is no better or worse than its predecessors,and if enjoyed previous cube films like i did then this will not disappoint as it has all the things you enjoyed from previous films with the added advantage of seeing a little of the goings on from the other side's 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.

CUBE ZERO, the third and final instalment of the CUBE trilogy, is a prequel to the first movie that attempts to explain more of the background behind the cube installation in an interesting and entertaining way.

The writers achieve this by presenting another round of participants battling against the various traps and tribulations, which are the goriest yet; the opening death sequence is grisly in the extreme and like something out of WISHMASTER. Running concurrently with this plotting is a behind-the-scenes scenario which shows something of the men who control the cube and their reasons for doing so.

CUBE ZERO is a resolutely low-budget B-movie that gets by on genre goodwill, enthusiastic performances from a game cast and some effective special effects. Michael Riley's robo-eyed baddie is by far the most fun, but the rest of the characters work too - and, as ever, watching their interactions is a whole lot of fun.

The twist ending is particularly worthwhile as it ties into the first CUBE in a neat and surprising way. This series may not be one to set your world on fire, but as ever, CUBE is a whole lot of fun.

Yet another group of unwilling participants wake up to find themselves in a giant maze full of nasty booby traps that kill them off in wonderfully gruesome, painful ways. This time, however, a man working on the outside, Wynn (Zachary Bennett), decides he no longer wants any part in this "project", so he throws himself into the cube to help the few people still alive get out...well, alive. "Cube" is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's got everything--an imaginative plot, suspense, great acting (Nicole DeBoer being the only exception), superb music, well-developed characters, and a thought-provoking ending that doesn't give us any explanation for WHY the cube exists. I actually enjoyed Hypercube, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit, in fact I liked it more than most others did, despite the horrible ending. Cube: Zero, the latest entry in the series, is good—though unfortunately far from being as good as it could have been.

Spoiler WARNING!!!

Cube: Zero writer/director, Ernie Barbarash—who penned and produced Hypercube—makes his directional debut with "Zero", and he does a very nice job behind the camera. The film looks good and he introduces an entirely new, different mood then either of the two previous cube films, which in my opinion works well. His writing has a flair of creativity to it as well—the "Food pills" and file cabinets full of previous Cube victims add a nice degree of realism to the film.

The acting is hit or miss. Zachary Bennett, Michael Riley, David Huband, Richard McMillan, and Mike 'Nug' Nahrgang all gave good to excellent performances. The rest of the principal cast members weren't so good.

Like the previous two films, Cube: Zero also showcases lots of visual and make-up effects. The CG ranges from fairly believable to so-so (The external shots of the cube's shell being noticeably unconvincing), though I've seen much worse CG from bigger budget fairs (See anything made Stephen Sommers for proof of that!).

The gore effects are very nasty. The opening death scene in which a man's skin melts right off his skeleton, complete with delightfully unnecessary close-ups of flesh falling to globs to the floor, is worth the price of admission for gore fans alone. There are lots of other gory treats as well, including a sonic weapon causing a man's body to literally burst, a guy cut to piece by razor wire, and more.

Norman Orenstein's score is terribly out of place accordion music. Why? Why accordion music? It sounds more fit for a comedy. His music for Hypercube sounded cool, but needless to say the score in both sequels are only a pale shadows compared to Mark Korven's fantastic music for the original Cube.

"Cube: Zero" has many good qualities but also lots of annoyances that keep me from giving it a higher rating than a 6. Still recommended though.

6/10.

In 1997, lovers of sci-fi were surprised by "Cube", one of the most original films I have ever seen. It was hard to label a genre for this cult-movie: drama, fantasy, horror, mystery, sci-fi and thriller are listed in IMDb for this Kafkaesque unforgettable tale. Later the opportunists released the completely unnecessary "Cube 2: Hypercube". In the present fashionable procedure in the cinema industry, "Cube Zero" tries to explain the beginning of the saga. The story is very weird, and the explanation is based on a totalitarian society, a kind of George Orwell's vision in "1984". Unfortunately, the screenplay has lots of holes; further, the caricaturist character of the crazy and sadistic scientist spoils any attempt of making a serious movie. In the end, "Cube Zero" is only a very forgettable entertainment. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil) "Cubo Zero" ("Cube Zero")

Well, where to begin? If first two films of Cube series were at least a riddle - who built it, why and what for, and that was largely left unanswered and enigmatic, this third installment suddenly plunges head on into this sphere and very quickly begins answering all the questions we can have. And was it a mistake. Sure, it was, and a huge one. Third Cube film is a total joke - it is silly, shallow, terribly kiddish and unpardonably kitsch. The cast is a huge mystery - who on earth would have chosen these awful actors who perform so lackluster and so poorly that any attempt at suspense is lost immediately. What is worse, several characters overplay and overdo so much they become clowns, jesters, mere buffoons, and again, any take on mystery is drowned in drabness. The CGI are nothing new, and in fact, I couldn't shake off a feeling I was watching some amateur Saw variation with same gore and not the same thrill. Again, there is no cohesion, no chemistry, no compassion for heroes, no idea why this awful mess was made. Zero on all levels, this is by far the Worst of all three.

Yes it's low budget but that adds to it, if you're a fan of a Sci-fi/horror at least check it out

Well......I have just watched this after watching Cube n Cube:hypercube n it was not anywhere near as good as the others. It gave us more insight into how it was created but not so much the why.

The acting was brilliant n the characters were great.

There was no action but there was enough tension n suspense built up by the characters to suffice.

The ending gave us a glimpse of the original Cube n was totally unexpected n unpredictable.

I highly recommend this movie especially if you have seen the two prior ones first. A really brilliant film.

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 remember that I disliked this movie when watching it earlier. But for some reason I did not dislike it watching it this time. Maybe my expectations were lower before watching it this time so that It was not such a disappointment compared to the first movie this time?

But on the other hand, I would say that this movie is still far from as good as the first movie, but all in all on the level of the second one. There is a horribly made "prosthetics" in this movie, the villain seems like a caricature and the fate of Cassandra is far to ambiquos in my taste and leaves more questions than it answers. But otherwise the acting is at least not as bad as in the two previous movies in this series, and the plot in "Cube Zero" is better and more original than in "Cube 2".

So I will say that if you lower your expectations compared to the original "Cube" down to "Cube 2", you might find this movie to be as bad or as good as "Cube 2", but not as good as the original "Cube".

If "Cube Zero" was an attempt to right the ship after the mistake known as "Cube2: Hypercube" then it was a failed attempt. They did nothing to restore credibility or goodness back to the franchise. The acting was just as poor if not poorer and there was nothing new except more scenes outside of the cube.

If I can comment on the acting for a bit because I feel I must. Now I believe that the pitiful acting is on purpose. For the actors to deliver their lines like they are doing voice overs for kung fu movies or doing voice overs for chipmunks just doesn't make sense. Their words were abrupt and choppy like they had to suddenly stop talking or they'd run out of breath. Nothing about their acting was good--the delivery of the lines, their facial expressions and their expressions of different emotions. Even if the plot was good they would have sank it.

Back to the story. Again, like "Hypercube", they fed us a little more information about the cube's purpose and who may be behind it. This is supposed to be a prequel so the cube you know in "Cube" is pretty much the cube you see here. Still, after having watched all three parts to this series I don't understand the significance of the cube participants.

It tries and fails to explain "Cube": the reason for its existence, who's behind it and why we know so little behind the characters. I don't know if it's fair to say they tried to explain because they really didn't. They just added more confusion and more mystery to a mysterious thing. This installment from the Cube trilogy is less intelligent, less creative and filled with more deus ex machinas (plot devices whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object). "Cube Zero" at least forecast it's ability to be entertaining: zero.