Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) (V)

Director:

Andrzej Sekula

Writers (WGA):

Sean Hood (story)
Sean Hood (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

15 April 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Welcome to a new dimension in fear

Plot:

Eight strangers find themselves waking up in a strange cube-shaped room with no recollection of how they came to be there...

Plot Keywords:

Stranger | Room | Hypercube | Kafka Esque | Cut To Pieces

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Kari Matchett	...	Kate Filmore
Geraint Wyn Davies	...	Simon Grady
Grace Lynn Kung	...	Sasha
Matthew Ferguson	...	Max Reisler
Neil Crone	...	Jerry Whitehall
Barbara Gordon	...	Mrs. Paley
Lindsey Connell	...	Julia
Greer Kent	...	Becky Young
Bruce Gray	...	Colonel Thomas H. Maguire
Philip Akin	...	The General
Paul Robbins	...	Tracton
Andrew Scorer	...	Dr. Phil Rosenzweig

Also Known As:

Cube²: Hypercube (USA)
Hypercube (USA) (promotional title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, some violence and brief nudity.

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:16 | South Korea:15 | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Canada:14A | Finland:K-15 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Italy:VM14 | New Zealand:R13 | Norway:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | Singapore:PG (cut)

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Ghost Logic

Trivia:

When Colonel Maguire is killed, the effect of the wall of energy crashing into him is actually just created with a vacuum cleaner stuck on exhale (to blow his clothes around) and CGI, for the wall itself.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Towards the end of the movie, while Kate is talking to Sasha, one of the walls of the cube is transparent, and a crew member can be seen.

Quotes:

Jerry Whitehall: How do you do, Mrs. Paley?
Mrs. Paley: Hello.
Jerry Whitehall: You don't happen to know why you're here, do you?
Mrs. Paley: Oh, dear, I was never very good at philosophy.
[Some of the others chuckle at this]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Re-Entering the Nightmare (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

I No You

Hypercube. The title should have given it away!

Hypercube. That title is terrible but I placated myself with the idea that a Hypercube is actually a real theoretical mathematical construct. That it wasn't some misjudged attempt at a catchy title. It is just telling it how it is. The first one was called Cube and was set in a Cube, this one is called Hypercube and is set in a Hypercube. How wrong I was. Everything - absolutely everything - in this movie is designed to be "Bigger, Better, Faster"! And that is why it fails miserably.

I loved the original Cube because of it's simplicity. It was what one might call a pseudo Science Fiction movie. It was a psychological thriller trying on the Science Fiction coat, and it worked to perfection. You thought, this is crazy BUT it could bloody well happen. It was (apparently) set in the here and now and everything in it was eerily possible. It would have cost an awful amount of money but it was possible, it was after all just a big mechanical Cube. Even the booby-traps were deceptively simple. The real beauty for me was that you never knew or got to know the why, where, or who in the first movie. The goal was simply to get out in one piece and each person had their individual skill to help achieve that goal.

Cube2 enters the full realm of Science Fiction and immediately trips and falls flat on it's face. None of the simplicity is left. The `captors' in this new cube must deal with time shifting, gravity shifting, alternate realities, some weird killer time thingy that moves through the rooms and one of the crew who turns a bit psycho... just like the policeman character from the first movie, except (you guessed it) he's even a BIGGER psycho. On top of that the story tries to put a face on who is behind these experiments: The Izon Military Corp. (or something along those lines). This movie therefore is what 2010 was to 2001, albeit on a more modest level. And in the same way it just doesn't work

Also, character development is practically nonexistent. For example one pair of characters disappear and are never seen again. Just like that, gone for no real reason except maybe to show the vastness of the Hypercube although another character seems adept at meeting the multiple instances of two other characters in particular. In the end you absolutely do not care for any of them or whether they can escape or not. The story gives you no reason to care for them. The idea of the Hypercube itself is too vast to make you care. As one character points out, the amount of possible rooms in a Hypercube is infinite. Therefore there is no real goal. The characters don't need each other to escape. There is no exit door in a Hypercube! So why bother at all?

And as for the one-liners. The pain, oh the pain.

The worst bit however is reserved for the end. The Über-Military guy's comments on the phone make it sound like they are really contemplating a Cube3. Spare us, please!