Cube Zero (2004)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This film is the third film in a series about a mysterious cube, in which people get trapped inside and die in horrible ways. A worker who is hired to be a technician of the cube decides to rescue a woman who seems to be placed in the cube wrongly.The previous two Cube films captivated me, even though they're gory at times. The plot of this film is less original and less captivating, after all it's the third film. It is good that the film is slightly different from the previous two, in that there is an outside perspective which makes the feel of the film very different. It is less mysterious, but have more human touch. Though it is less thrilling than the other two films, it is still an interesting film to watch.

Let me start with saying this: Hypercube wasn't that bad. It definitely didn't work as a sequel to Cube, but was decent as a STAND-ALONE FILM. Definitely kinda dumb, but a guilty pleasure. But I'm not here to talk about Hypercube. This is Cube Zero. And Cube Zero makes its first mistake in the opening scene: it tries to copy the tension sudden horror from the opening in Cube. Only that instead of getting sliced into cubes, he thinks acid is water at first. I do give it points for being fairly frightening and it's actually the only scene in the movie to give me the creeps. But it's still a lazy attempt to make fans of the first movie intrigued. But this is one of the smallest offenders. Before I go on to the next thing, this is not a spoiler for THIS movie. However, it's hard to talk about this movie without referring back to the ending of Hypercube, so what the hell, I put the spoiler tag here anyway. It's revealed that the secret behind the cube is, wait for it... TWO GUYS IN A DIRTY LITTLE ROOM PLAYING CHESS. Wow! What a astonishing yawn-dropping plot-twist! Except it's not. It's like Ernie Barbarash assume the audience is a hoop of hamsters who will be mesmerized by anything, no matter how stupid it is. Even though this is a really f ucking dumb twist, it could MAYBE have worked if these two individuals are two psychotic creeps with no remorse of human life. Still not very good, but at least would make for a more decent movie. But nope. These are two poor pathetic saps trapped in a room playing chess... and drawing a little. David Huband, who is playing Dodd... is AWFUL. He. Is. Freaking. Terrible. If you want an actor playing a kid occupying a playground and shouting at everyone, sure. But otherwise, he just doesn't fit for the role. That his lines are horrible doesn't help either. God, he was just PAINFUL. Zachary Bennett, who plays his friend, is a whole lot better. He could be worse than that and still a better actor than Huband. Bennett is the kind of actor where you think "Why the hell didn't he assign for a better movie?". But many actors make mistakes (or in some cases, their agents) when choosing movies to have a part in. The first forty-five minutes in essentially pretty much nothing. All the fun and excitement is gone. The heart-pounding tension is not there either. The one-dimensional, but entertaining characters, from the first movie, gone too. Eric Wynn is less of a cardboard cut out than Dodd, but I still don't care very much for any of them. There is a scene I had a chuckle at though. The one where Dodd has a poor bastard trapped in a dark room, and receives the question "Do you believe in God?". Confused, he answers no... and dies. This scene was meant to show how the two main characters are forever destined to watch and give people a living hell, but the execution of it made the scene dumb, not effective. After the snail slow first half, Wynn decides he's tired of sitting in a room doing nothing, so he enters a cube to help some individuals out. And there individuals... they all suck. None of them has any sort of character trait to give a crap about at all. So not much to say about these people, since I can't even remember how they were like. Or looked like. Oh one more thing, there's someone in the cast playing Cassandra Rains. Who was that again? Eh, who cares. As contrived and idiotic most of the movie is, it does at least have a good villain. Michael Riley, who is playing Jax, seems to have a lot of fun in his role and gives the movie some energy when he's featured in a scene. If not for him, my rating for this movie might be even lower. He also has the better lines of the movie.I haven't gotten to the ending yet. Oh my God... Oh my God, WHAT?! Wynn is re-incarnated as Kazan??? I mean, I've seen some dumb movie endings in my life, but this is F UCKED! I feel like someone just raped me and went "Sorry bud, you are gonna have to live with this."The cinematography is nice and two actors in the movie do their best, but aside from that, this is a disgrace to Cube and to well-made horror movies. If you want to rip on this movie, see it with some pals. But do for the love of God not see it yourself. You will wish you spent your time watching Cube for the second time instead, funny enough.All right, I've said all I can think of. But I will never stop being angry at the fact that this movie was even made.

I've heard of the Cube series, but my interest in the series started with Cube Zero. I don't know; Something about it makes it so fascinating and it's hard to describe that without spoiling the movie to people who hadn't watched it yet.When I first stumbled upon this film, and then looked it up on this site, it was pretty clear that most people did not like this movie. So, after getting the chance to watch it on the internet (Because of the rating it received, I couldn't buy it,) and I have to say, it was actually a nice prequel to Cube, apart from the less than two hour time run and some of the traps involved.The premise of Cube Zero sounds very similar to the first Saw movie and all of it's sequels. For example, the facts of people waking up in a strange room, with no recollection of how they even got there, or why they're in there, and the threat of certain death, is there in both series. In order to get a clear understanding of Cube Zero, I recommend looking up and/or watching the first movie, like I did when I first heard of the series, back in early 2012. For me, I would definitely recommend it, because of the mystery that surrounds the Cube and it's victims makes it so worth it to watch.

Uh....Why make this movie? the guy with the Eye.....OK, THE EYE issue...wtf?? Why do we have a "CHARACTER" actor in this film? Why do we have a sincerely...bizarre laughable, corn ball acted persona??? why is this.....actor hired for this film, his portrayal was goofy, not menacing, not scary, just corn ball strange.WTF??? Btw: the majority of this film was cheap and cheesy THE ONLY good portion was the guy turning into the autistic character seen in the first cube concept in the 90's...