Cube Zero
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Movie Reviews of Cube Zero
Movie Review: Great sequal,
Summary: 5 Stars
Best sequal to the amazing origional. This film is just as good as the origional classic. Great effects, lots of awesome traps, and no CGI. Awesome.Movie Review: Nice Product
Summary: 5 Stars
Good product, ships fast with standard shipping, excellent price. And was a used dvd. no negative issues to speak of.Movie Review: Questions? Comments? What are we waiting for?
Summary: 4 Stars
If you go into this film expecting wild rides and visuals that will leave your socks at the other end of the room, you will be utterly disappointed. Now, if you walk into this film expecting a lower-than-low budget, some slightly above average acting, with a fun twist at the end that seems to aptly tie the series only closer together, than you will enjoy this film. I, personally, walked in with no expectations. I was a huge fan of the original Cube film and even of the second film (the one that most disliked) called Cube 2: Hypercube. I thought that overall the story was strong and it opened more doors and possibilities to the birth of this unknown monolith. So, when the opportunity came about to see this film, I walked into it skeptical. How well could a "prequel" be to a series that already started so well? Again, not expecting much is key to enjoying this film.
To begin, the story is decent. While I do believe it overloaded itself by answering too many questions, it did provide us with this world outside the cube that seemed like a cross between Brazil and The X-Files. This was great because it provided us with a visual of the unknown that our minds have grappled with throughout the entire series, but it also hurt the film because it did put that "visual" on the unknown. Half the excitement from the second two films was that you never really knew who or what was behind the chaos and destruction that these unwilling participants encountered. I will say that this film leaves the door still open to several possibilities, but the questions that were answered seem to shut so many more. The fear of the first two films was the participants inside the machine that didn't know the menacing smile of the person watching their death, we also experienced that fear because there was that "unknown". Now, the "unknown" is answered (somewhat) and it doesn't quite paint the picture that was created in my mind.
I don't want to sound like I am crashing this film into the ground, far from it, but there were several moments while I was watching this movie that I thought to myself, "well, that kinda works for me..." as if I was agreeing with the images that the director chose to use. You know all these years I kept saying to myself that I wanted the answers, yet now that they are presented to me, I am not happy. There was nothing that the director, cast, or even the writers did to make me feel that way, but I just didn't feel comfortable with the translation. It was like seeing your Christmas presents the day before and having to pretend to be excited when you open them ten hours later. It is very difficult. Again, I don't want it to seem as if I am cutting this film, because I thought that it added a decent chapter to the series, just not the best chapter.
The acting was at par or a bit under for this film. You could tell that budget was not as big as the first or second film, but the passion that director Ernie Barbarash (who worked as writer and producer of the second Cube film) has for this series and for this story is unmatched. He tries diligently to bring new and exciting characters to the screen, while also keeping us familiar with the other films. He doesn't try to build a new cube and give us this artsy feeling of originality, he keeps consistent, and you can definitely give him credit for that. I just wish he had built more suspense with the story. I was patiently waiting on the edge of my seat for this big "hurrah" at the end, or perhaps middle, but it only seemed to sizzle and give me the excitement of a small bottle rocket exploding. There was a "cute" twist at the end that helps build for Cube, but mustering up the strength to tell your grandmother would be a waste of time.
This may be the most confusing review that I have ever written because there is this gray fuzzy line staring me in the face. I love the movie, yet disliked the images that it produced for me. It was innovative, but nothing spectacular. It will be added to my collection, but does not rank among my favorites. There was some great work done by Barbarash, but nothing more than a pat on the back. He did good work and he did hard work, but was this exactly what the series needed? The religious undertones coupled with the apparent "superhero" themes felt like bits of cheese on a wafer of metal known as the cube. Barbarash, I think, had a bigger plan for this film, but do to apparent budgetary cutbacks, he just couldn't fit everything together.
Overall, I loved this film, and yet I had problems with it. It was an apparent "Eyah" film. I had so much excitement for it because of my keen interest on the two other films that I think it hurt my imagination and theories behind the cube more than help define this machine better. The segway near the end excited me, yet at the same time felt forced and needed to appease the original Cube fans. This film will make it to my collection of films one-day, but it does not rank up well compared to the films that are supposed to succeed it. I recommend this film only to die-hard Cube fans, but to the untrained eye, this will not brood over well.
Arg, I give up.
Grade: **** out of *****
Movie Review: Cube Cubed
Summary: 4 Stars
I find myself experiencing two schools of thought when it comes to the CUBE series. On the one hand, they are all poorly acted, with mostly redundant plots and predictable dialogue. On the other hand, their structures are so blatantly philosophical, so unabashadly symbolic, it's kind of a treat to sit back and fiddle with the concepts it represents. Sorta the same way you'd fill in a few of the boxes on a crossword puzzle you know you're never going to finish. It's addictive like that; a plate of cheese that people talk around even as they pick it apart.
And if you're wondering if these plates have the kind of cheese you like, then this review is for you.
Cube - People wake up in a labyrinthine cube with no idea of how they got there or why they've been kidnapped. They must navigate through a series of deadly traps, without knowing just what it is they're headed for (or even where it is). A doctor, a famous escapist, a cop, a mentally handicapped fella -- personalities clash, and what could've been a tight little parable of existentialism becomes a squabbling social commentary about the brutality of big, mean men. It's tense, but not paced particularly well, although the ending has a thankful spot of hope. Like the Rubik's Cube, most people will find this cube compelling for a few twists and turns, but are unlikely to find the ending all that rewarding. 3 1/2 stars.
Cube 2 - Hypercube - The cube has gone hyper! Dimensional that is. Gone is the first cube's relentless dankness, replaced here by sterile, unapologetic white. Although the new cube is also fraught with hidden perils, these are mostly of the multidimensional variety. What this means for you, the viewer, is that the traps are now CGI contraptions that look not convincing in the least. It also means that many rooms have their own gravity and "variable time speeds." Oh, I almost forgot, the most awesome thing it means is that it exists in multiple dimensions at once, so there are apparently about fifteen different copies of each person wandering around at the same time.
Did I say "awesome"? I'm sorry. I meant "unfortunate." Because this cube has basically no rules, virtually anything can happen, making what DOES happen less important in the long run. We've got some crazy characters -- a senile physicist, a blind girl, a private detective, a video game desinger and a lawyer -- and they all have connections with a scary-big corporation named Izon, but who cares? The least plot driven of the three movies, this film is also the darkest (in spite of how well-lit each frame is). And, of course, it succumbs to the same mistake as the first film. Instead of being about the little people coming to terms with the bizarre futility of their circumstances, it devolves into a big man going crazy and chasing everyone around with a knife. 2 stars.
CUBE ZERO - I don't know why they called this CUBE ZERO instead of CUBE CUBED. Maybe it's supposed to be a prequel, but I doubt it. It's possible they just thought "zero" sounded better than "three." Or maybe it's because, for the first time ever, the viewer is treated to life outside of the cube.
Don't worry. The cube is still there, just as gloomy and lethal as ever (and in far more vividly gross ways), but the group of people inside the box are at least as important as the people watching them. The watchers in this case are a couple of be-jumpsuited guys named Wynn and Dodd who sit around, play chess, and record people's dreams. These guys give the series a chance to do some more overt navel-gazing, but the end effect isn't that bad, even if it mostly just feels like a Pinter play. Specifically, THE DUMBWAITER. (Read it. It's good.)
Still, no matter how full of dread and terror his plays were, Pinter always kept the terrible and dreaded things off-stage. When Wynn begins to question his duties, eventually taking drastic measures to get some answers, he causes chaos in and out of the cube. Enter three of the dreaded higher-ups. An effete and over-acted character named Jax pops in, followed closely by two well-groomed go-fers. (Everytime Jax talked to them, I could swear he was calling them Thin and Quickly, but the credits list them as Finn and Quigley.) They are heralded with whimsically creepy violin music, like an incidental theme song, and although they aren't fooling around, their presence makes the whole thing far less ominous than it normally would.
Still, the wackiness they provde is menacing and self-assured, and it disguises a story with far more heart and smarts than its predecessors. Even if the story contains, yet again, a big, angry man chasing people around, that is a minor part of the much larger, much more hopeful picture. Satisfying in a lot of ways, this film also pays homage to fans who've endured the films from the beginning. 4 stars
Movie Review: Very cool!
Summary: 4 Stars
I have not seen CUBE 1, but have seen CUBE 2. I thought Hypercube was ok, but not very good. CUBE:ZERO however, is everything that Hypercube was not.
I won't bother with too much of a detailed synposis. Same story, people wake up in the CUBE, not knowing how they got there. The difference in this story from the previous one is that in CUBE ZERO, they also seem to have also lost their memory of who they were before the CUBE also. The CUBE is just that, a CUBE shaped room with doors on all six sides that lead to other CUBE rooms. The only catch, some of the rooms are death traps. And not nice death traps either, very gruesome traps. The rooms can move around also!
The story half involves the people in the CUBE, just as in the previous CUBE's. However, the other half of the story, the more interesting part, is the story of a guy who's outside the CUBE who is actually an operator of the CUBE. He starts to ask too many questions, and figures out that all is not what it seems.
First off, the CUBE is SO MUCH COOLER! It's much more colder, mechanical, realistic, then the hypercube. Even though the rooms are identical, they are illuminated in different colors, which helped break up the same-ness of all the rooms.
The traps in CUBE:ZERO were so much more gruesome and realistic then the terrible completely fakey computer generated traps in the Hypercube.
There is something to be said about not revealing too much or explaining too much in a movie, because your own imagination can be so much more creative. CUBE:ZERO doesn't reveal too much, but reveals just enough of what's going on. They talk about the how and the what, they don't really explain the why though, and that's fine, because that's up to you to explain. People who were frustrated with the whole "you only think it's cool cause it doesn't make any sense" thing will be much happier with CUBE : ZERO. It makes just enough sense, but not too much sense!
Once again, like Hypercube, this is NOT a horror movie. It's a sci-fi movie that is reminiscient of a outer limits / twighlight zone / X-files type of story. Sure, there's some horror elements in it, and it's much more of a horror-type story then hypercube, but it's still not a horrow movie. I'd say it's very close to like Hellraiser 2 as far as some of the ways that people get killed. But it's definitely a dark sci-fi movie. Similar in darkness to "Dark City", however, with blood and gore. In fact, those who have seen Dark City will probably raise an eyebrow or two when they reveal the names of a couple of the "suits" who come down from "upstairs".
I have not seen CUBE, but I plan to see it the very next time it's available to rent. I have seen Hypercube though, and I have to say that CUBE ZERO is a THOUSAND times better than Hypercube. In Hypercube, you want to know what's going on, and find out what happens, but you could give a darn who died and how. The characters were so unlikeable that their deaths were meaningless. But in CUBE ZERO, you actually feel sorry for the people trapped in the cube, for the most part, and hope that they find a way out.
The set, the special effects, are a thousand times better than Hypercube. In fact, it's so much more better, that the titles Hypercube and CUBE ZERO should not even be uttered in the same breath. CUBE ZERO was all that I hoped it could be. This was a movie that I could have easily watched in a movie theater. The only thing I really hated about it was that the end is left wide open, with just as many new questions to be asked, as were answered in the movie.
Update:
Since I originally wrote this, I actually got to see CUBE 1. After seeing it, I now know why people thought the original CUBE was so great. However, I don't think it's so much more better than CUBE : ZERO.
I think that there are some things in CUBE that are better than CZ, and I think that CZ has a few things that are better than CUBE. They really compliment each other. CZ is supposed to be a pre-quel to CUBE, so I thought it EXTRA COOL that the very last seen in CZ was the very first seen in CUBE. It really tied them together. I think anybody who enjoyed the original CUBE will love CZ, and the other way around also.
Whatever you do though, if you haven't yet seen Hypercube, DON'T! It is REALLY REALLY BAD.
CUBE and CZ go hand in hand. It's as if one was made right after the other. I hope you found this review helpful!