It is approximately 12:43pm May 9 2020 and I have just watched 'Cube Zero' (2004) and in doing so have watched the whole of the Cube franchise. This is a franchise that without these lockdown reviews I would have never watched and yet here we are. It is a franchise that has both surprised me and made me want to gauge my own eyes out and is definitely one that I won't be coming back to anytime soon if ever again. But anyway, enough of that, let's get on with the review of the final film and prequel, 'Cube Zero'. As with the other films this one follows a group of strangers trapped inside the Cube with no memory of who they are or how they got there. However, this film also shows us the workings of the cube from the outside as we see two technicians, Eric Wynn (Zachary Bennett) and Dodd (David Huband), who work on collecting data and keeping the Cube running. When Wynn starts to believe that the people in the Cube are not in there for the reasons he has been told, and after becoming enamoured with one of the prisoners, Cassandra Rains (Stephanie Moore), he decides to go into the Cube himself and save them. His actions do not go unnoticed and the Cube's higher ups journey down to the control room to deal with the situation.
Tone is hugely important in films. 'Cube' (1997) was a bit silly sometimes, but a maintained a consistent tone of mystery and horror, as did 'Cube 2: Hypercube' (2002) despite being shit.. 'Cube Zero' does not have the same control over its tone. The film is classified by Wikipedia as a science fiction psychological horror thriller film. Whoever classified that forgot to put parody and if this film is not a parody then I have no idea what the filmmakers were doing. This film is so ridiculous and so over the top that it becomes comical. The narrative is ridiculous, the special effects are ridiculous and the acting is ridiculous. Firstly the special effects. This film uses mostly practical effects rather than CGI (thank god after the horrific history of CGI in this franchise) and the effects themselves look pretty decent. However, they are comically over the top. Its copious amounts of guts and gore and it is done in ridiculous ways. I did find myself laughing at a lot of the gore scenes and I don't know if I was meant to. There is also a character in this film, Robert P. Haskell (Martin Roach), who is a solider with a chip in his brain. When this chip is activated he basically becomes a mindless superhero and it is so, so stupid. Again, I couldn't help but laugh. But this isn't the funniest bit. Oh no. Oh no no no. The funniest bit is the reason Dodd has to finally disobey orders and help Eric and the group out of the Cube. Throughout the first half of the film we are shown Eric and Dodd's relationship and it is rocky at best. It is shown that they kind of just tolerate each other and Dodd especially does not really like Eric. Eric is also shown to be a doodler and he has drawn a picture of Dodd as a superhero, Chessman because of his love of Chess. This picture is what makes Dodd choose to be a hero. I am not kidding. A picture of him as Chessman makes him do a whole 180 on his character motivations. Now this would work if the relationship between Eric and Dodd was shown to be loving but tense. Show that they do care for each other despite their differences. But that's not what we get and so the reasoning behind Dodds turn towards the light comes across as farcical, a bit like the whole film come to think of it.
Now, I know I mentioned that the acting in this film is ridiculous but that is actually not entirely true. Most of the acting is fine. Not great but fine. However, there is one performance so ridiculous that it completely overshadows any of the other performances. The only two other performances worth mentioning are those of Zachary Bennett and David Huban as Eric and Dodd. They both have decent chemistry with each other and they put in fun performances. They struggle a little bit when asked to show emotion but its not that bad. But there is only one performance in this I want to talk about and that is Michael Riley as Jax, one of the evil higher ups who comes down to sort out the issue of Eric. This performance is what made me truly question whether the film was trying to be a parody or not. It is a cartoon. The character looks like a cartoon with a robotic eye, a cane and evil moustache, and Riley in turn puts in a ridiculously over the top performance. This character is meant to be your villain, but he is also used as comic relief and it just doesn't fit at all. I don't know if the character is meant to be really cartoonish to signify being mad or over the top creepy or what, but it really doesn't work and it is just comical instead. This performance and character genuinely made me think this film may be a spoof, but the rest of the film doesn't match this tone so I have no idea whats going on.
'Cube Zero' is a film where I can just not grasp how I'm meant to feel. Is it meant to be scary or funny, is it meant to be serious or silly, I have no idea and this lead to the film feeling like a tonal mess. It is pretty well made with decent shot composition, lighting, sound, etc and the performances, excluding Michael RIley, are decent, but the film on the whole is a mess because of its lack of tone. It can be fun at times because of how ridiculous it is but it is mostly not great. Unless you have seen the first two Cube films and you need to watch it too finish the series I wouldn't bother. Not the worst film ever made, but not great either. I will give this film one thing though, it is miles better than 'Cube 2: Hypercube'.