Back to Start Positions

Two movies into the Cube series and we were already running into a problem. While Cube set up the whole concept for the films – people kidnapped and thrown into a prison of cube rooms, all within a larger cube, and they have to try and escape even though certain rooms have deadly traps and the whole system is set up just to kill them – the franchise was quickly bumping up against an issue of where to go from there. The sequel, Cube 2: Hypercube, went hard on the sci-fi but failed to deliver on horror, let alone interesting characters or a narrative that actually works. The plot of the sequel felt like more of the same, without actually pushing anything forward. Big ideas for the cube structure muddied the whole concept without having a narrative drive that got us trucking along.

Put another way: it was fine to not push the narrative truly forward in the first film because that was the first time we were dropped into this world and we were still experiencing it. The first film could get away with a light narrative that mostly focused on characters and concept because that was enough to hang a movie around it. If it had remained just a single film, you’d never care because it was a perfect, bite size amount of movie. The second they brought out a sequel, though, they had to go somewhere with it, and it became clear there wasn’t a greater narrative at play for the series. At least, not yet.

That’s where Cube Zero kind of comes in. Acting as a kind of prequel for the series (although you could credibly think of it more as a reboot), the film delves into the function of the cube and the people that run and maintain it. It’s loosely connected to the first film, and draws allusions to it as the story plays out, but it also adds in new twists and wrinkles to the storytelling for the film, giving the series a new direction and new concepts to play with. This creates a truly fresh experience for the series, giving it the kind of narrative drive it needed.

The movie is set in a control room outside the cube, with two office drones, Wynn (Zachary Bennett) and Dodd (David Huband), manning the controls for the cube. Most of their time is spent goofing off, drawing pictures or playing chess or darts, while the events inside a cube play out on their monitors. Wynn, being a newer member of the team, can’t help but watch the events, even getting invested in the lives of the prisoners within, even after Dodd tells him not to get attached, not to care, because that’s frowned upon by the higher-ups. And since everyone thrown into the cube has signed a release form (because they’re all prisoners and it’s sign the form or execution), it’s better to just keep your head down and not ask questions.

But then Wynn sees, within the cube, Cassandra Rains (Stephanie Moore), a political activist who wasn’t a prisoner and didn’t sign the release forms. Rains is an innocent (at least in terms of the function of the cube), and Wynn knows some kind of mistake had to have been made. He tries to get Dodd to make a call to the higher-ups, but his coworker is hesitant. So Wynn takes matters into his own hands, hopping on the elevator to the floors above… which reveals an entrance to the cube and nothing more. Realizing the only way to save her is to climb in, Wynn willingly enters the cube to try and save the day and finally strike out against the oppressive system he’s been working for this whole time.

The change of perspective for this film really does open up the storytelling potential immensely. While there are parts of the film that take place within the current cube, following Rains and her collected associates trapped in there with her, much of the story happens in the office outside, a single room for the observers. This introduces us to characters not trapped in the cube, allowing us to get their thoughts on the situation from an “informed” perspective. They chat about what’s going on, what they think upper management are up to, and whether the people inside the cube actually deserve their fate. That’s a lot, and it’s certainly more story than either of the previous films could pull off from their limited locations and perspective.

The core thing Cube Zero does is put a face to the faceless system that was alluded to in the first two films. Some entity, some government program, has to be running this thing. The first film put out the idea that the system is simply running because it was built and no one knows how to stop it, but even if that were the case, someone would have to be going out and actively capturing people to put into it. It requires people to run it, and maintain it, and keep the experiments going. It needs people, and Cube Zero shows us a small sampling of those people actively engaged in the process. I like that a lot.

With that said, the biggest issue I have with the film is that, despite finally showing us what goes on outside the cube, the film changes a lot of the details leading to a movie that doesn’t actually seamlessly tie into the other films. For starters, the first film established that random, normal people were put into the cube by a faceless, governmental organization, while the second made it seem like it was a military project and the people put into the cube potentially knew too much (or could know too much). That didn’t contradict the first film since one of the characters in that movie was a contractor on a small piece of the project; cleaning up any witnesses made sense.

This third film, though, rewrites that. Now the people going in aren’t just random people, or witnesses, but prisoners, people that deserve to be there and had no other choice on the matter. Rains fits more into the perspective for prisoners for the first two films, but this still introduces a major retcon for the whole setup. Were the people that went crazy and started killing people in the cubes driven mad by the psychological torture of the prison, or were they homicidal to begin with and just giving into their old ways? It says things about the characters that contradicts everything we knew before and, in a way, actually blunts the narrative thrills of the previous films in the process.

The film also introduces a lot more futuristic tech to the world of Cube, which also changes our perspective on the films. In the first film the cube seems dystopian and awful, yes, but it’s not so technologically advanced that it feels like it had to have come from the future. This is a prison that, in theory, could be built now, and that adds to the terror the audience feels. If our world were only slightly different, slightly more indifferent to its citizens, a prison like this could be built. While the sequel added in the weird hypercube setup, and played too hard in sci-fi tropes, it still had this vibe like it could exist now, or close to now.

Cube Zero, though, goes even harder, adding in all kinds of weird tech that feels out of place in our current world (whether we look at it from the perspective of 2004, when this film was made, or twenty years later, as of the time of this writing). We’re talking tech like technologically enhanced super-soldiers or complete meals in pills. Some of the tech on display was advanced for 2004, like touch sensor screens and motion control finger-gloves. No matter what, this film wanted you to think it was future tech sci-fi, which goes against what we knew previously. It feels out of place.

It forces me to think of Cube Zero not as a prequel (like the creators intended) but as a reboot to the franchise which, actually, works just fine for me. If we discount what we knew and just let ourselves get invested in this new film, I think it works well. It gives us enough narrative twists that we can enjoy what we have here without it feeling like a retread of the previous stories. It’s a solid, gory work for the series that gets back to the fundamentals while expanding the breadth of the storytelling. All around it presents a bold story direction for the series, promising new things to come as the series built itself out.

Unfortunately this would also prove to be the last film in the main series, with only a loose remake made over in Japan years later. It’s sad to think about what could have been if the series had continued on, where it could have gone with this broader scope and perspective. But hey, at least the series could go out on something of a high note, giving us a better, fuller experience than Cube 2: Hypercube. It answers some questions, gives us a look outside the cube, and finally says, “yes, this is more than just a nameless conspiracy.” Perhaps the series could have gone further, but I am at least satisfied with where it ended here.