Cube Zero

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.

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

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

Another group of individuals awake to find themselves trapped within the confinement of the now legendary Cube,with only their wits and their speed to save them.In this instalment,we also learn more about the people behind the Cube and the sinister true reason for it's existence...

As I watched Cube:Zero stretch out before me,I couldn't help but feel I was watching yet another example of a great original film,a far-fetched but undeniably inventive and thoroughly engaging science-fiction caper,being milked for all it's worth with tacky video sequels.For any gore-hounds out there,there's some impressive grisly dismemberment scenes to behold and the original angle remains as clever as ever,but it's no cleverer than it was before.The film is just that:a desperate and sad extension of it's original self.It's never made clear what the Zero in the title means,but zero is a name for cannabis,and that's sort of what it feels the screen-writers had been puffing too much of when they penned another entry into the Cube franchise.With some naff new central characters introduced (typical and dourly indicative of this kind of video sludge!) and a slumberous pace,one can only hope that this marks the final part of the now depressingly wearisome Cube franchise.**

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.