"Cube" (1997) and "Cube Zero" (2004)

The "Cube" trilogy is a pretty decent sci-fi series. They are low budget and (mostly) poorly acted, but the premise is a good one. They are entertaining enough that you can look through their faults and find a fairly enjoyable story behind it. Unfortunately we only own the first movie and the third movie. The second one used to be available on Netflix once upon a time, but not any longer.

In "Cube", a group of strangers with seemingly no connection wake up in a maze of cubes - some trapped, some not - with no memory of how they got there. They have no food, no water, and only the issued clothes on their backs. Is it the government? Is it aliens? They don't know. They just know they need to survive. 

The acting is pretty bad, and every character is totally punchable throughout the entire movie. The plot kind of has a feel similar to "Saw II" (which we will get to eventually), but without all the absurd death puzzles and killer cancer patient with a doll fetish. After about 20 minutes, any movie buff will be able to guess what most of the characters are there for. There are a few twists along the way, but that's mostly to keep things interesting. Otherwise, the story would get old really quick.

One of the interesting things about this movie is this is something that could potentially exist. A large experiment with traps to see how people react in the situation. I'm not saying I condone the experiment, but its possible. In "Cube 2: Hypercube", things get to be far more sci-fi-like with weird black holes, rooms that change dimensions, and time travel.

Of all three, "Cube" is the one that feels the cheapest made. The entire movie takes place on the same 14'x14'x14' set, just changing the colors for each room. From a film-making perspective, it's cheap and fairly ingenious, though it can feel like a bit of a rip-off at times. Fun fact: the movie was not shot chronologically, but actually according to the color of the room. So all scenes which take place in a red room were shot first, followed by all scenes in another color, and so on.

"Cube Zero" shows us a much different look at the Cube: this time we are in a control room, watching the people fight for their lives. We follow Wynn - a young genius who works for the private organization that funds the cube - who watches and monitors the subjects in the maze. Wynn and his co-workers were always told that the subjects were convicted felons who chose to enter an experiment over a lethal injection, and therefore they chose their own deaths. That is, until Cassandra wakes up in the cube, and Wynn learns that she never agreed to being brought in. He soon finds that one of his missing co-workers has ended up in the maze, and is killed when reaching the exit. Is this faceless secret organization actually evil? Wynn enters the maze to help Cassandra escape. Since he knows all the tricks, it should be easy to find the way out, right?

Many people complain that "Cube Zero" is just a rip-off of the first "Cube". I disagree vehemently. I like to think that this is to the first movie what "Cabin in the Woods" is to the cabin in the woods motif. Without the comedy. Wynne and Dodd are just pawns in the game (pun definitely intended, sorry) as much as Cassandra and the others are. There are a few throwbacks to the first movie, and luckily the kinda gloss over "Hypercube", because it really sticks out in the trilogy. Not in a good way like "Starship Troopers 2" (we will get to them eventually. Hopefully all four, if I can track down the fourth by that time. It's my favorite). I really don't want to give away the ending, because it's really great. It's something you can kind of see coming if you pick up on the hints along the way. 

One of my favorite things they do in the movie is when they show how Wynn's brain works. I love when they do things like that in movies and TV. In this instance, it shows us how Wynn's eiditec memory works. 

Overall, I wouldn't seek these movies out. They both (all three, really) have a feel of Saturday Sy-Fy Channel Marathon. I'm not sure I've ever seen them on there before, but that would be the place to catch them. If you see them in a dollar bin somewhere, they're worth picking up. They are entertaining enough movies. And Jax in "Cube Zero" adds some much-needed evil comic relief.