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Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)

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55 out of 74 people found the following comment useful :-
Hypercube. The title should have given it away!, 19 August 2002

Author: d3nneb from Germany (originally Ireland)

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!

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41 out of 50 people found the following comment useful :-
Cube 2: Hypercube: 6/10, 5 July 2004

Author: movieguy1021 (Movieguy1021@comcast.net) from Anywhere, USA

I've never really thought about it this way, but I suppose in most cases, it's an honor to have a sequel. Although no one liked the sequel, I'm sure Jonathon Lynn is proud that The Whole Nine Yards got a sequel somehow. And that seems like the case with Cube 2: Hypercube, a sequel to the cult hit Cube. But then one wonders how there can be a sequel to a movie that was basically all filmed in one 14x14x14 set? Well, Cube 2 is the answer-but not really the best one. It shows what Cube would have been if it had had a bigger budget, but it also showed what it didn't want to become.

Strangers are thrown together into a series of interconnecting cubes yet again, but this time they're more high-tech. They're not different colors, and there's no booby traps. Instead, some rooms have a cube that attacks you (don't ask), some have gravity reversed, and time means nothing. There seems to be no pattern, like in the first one, so how are these people supposed to get out?

This is all one big rehash of the first. There's the wandering around, talking about the past, and speculation of why they're in the cube. I guess that's for people who see sequels before the originals. The characters are all more broadly drawn, the dialogue is cheesier, and it looks faker. In the first, you barely knew anything about the giant cube they were in. Here, it seems like everyone was involved somehow. The ending, which was vague in the first, explained some more, which I was angry yet happy about. It's hard to explain. But then they left it in the air yet again. Maybe it's for the prequel, Cube Zero (due out sometime this year) to describe.

But one positive difference between the two is that this one seemed to be overall scarier. It's not claustrophobia, but the idea of anything happening in a hypercube. Because they don't exist, everything goes wild here, allowing for some things to happen. It's all quite creepy. And although the random crazy psycho killer is more random here than the first, I liked him more, and he was great as he was going through the hypercube. Cube was an original, interesting, and disorienting movie. Cube 2 is the exact same thing, except not as good.

My rating: 6/10

Rated R for language, some violence and brief nudity.

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29 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
I expected so much after Cube. Luckily, Hypercube isn't bad., 4 February 2003

Author: tenten76 from London

First off, don't bother seeing this until you've seen Cube. You wouldn't miss much if you did, but you won't appreciate & enjoy it nearly as much. I heard this was more of a remake than a sequel, but actually it's a straight-out sequel.

Again, a seemingly random group of people are abducted and imprisoned in a possibly enormous matrix of anonymous Cube-shaped rooms, with doors in all six surfaces, and a number of fiendish & deadly booby traps (and scary noises). Hypercube (moving on from Cube) adds gravity, time and parallel universe traps into the mix.

It's good because: it's broadly similar to Cube, which was excellent. You're not immediately sure who will be standing at the end. The special effects are a bit 'clean' looking, but very smart. And there are some funny moments in this one.

But it's not brilliant because: the plot is a little too clear (and simple), whereas Cube really worked because it was unexplained and ambiguous. The characters seemed to fit the same sort of roles as in the first movie. And there's a fair bit of hammy over-acting, deliberate comedy, and a curious lack of desperation & fear (whereas Cube was superb in all these respects).

There are a lot of well-intentioned sequels which (by their very nature) cannot string you along with the same 'fear of the unknown' in the original, and this is the case here. I also believe that having access to a bigger budget for a sequel is often a bad thing, since it's easier to go for flashy special effects at the expense of story, acting & dramatic tension - as in this case. (brilliant opening credits though)

But Hypercube - although not as good as Cube - does work as 'next step' sort of sequel. I was just surprised I laughed so often, without it ruining the film for me.

If they make a third one (the ending does indicate that they could), they should spend the vast part of the budget on a really good concept/script & director, get really-good-but-unknown STAGE actors (Hypercube came across as more of a soap-opera level of acting), and go back to the ingeniously wicked & creative traps a la Cube - because the CGI route does not look like a road worth following any further..

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Fails at many levels, 12 May 2007

Author: DrLex from Belgium

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Cube 2 is in many respects just a clone of the original Cube movie. Suppose you haven't seen that movie yet and consider watching this more recent version, which would probably be cooler because it has a larger budget and CGI... don't! Watch the original instead. If you like it, watch Cube Zero afterwards. Don't watch this one unless you really ache for more Cube- stuff.

There are many things about Hypercube that don't work. Overall, it feels like a bad remake of an old classic. This is not surprising because that's exactly what it is, except for the fact that the original isn't really 'old' yet, it only predates this movie by 5 years. 'Cube 2' is populated by almost exactly the same characters as the first movie. The premise is also the same, even though they added an extra 'dimension' (literally).

Of course it also differs from the original Cube in some ways. First, the complexity of the way in which the original 'cube' could be solved, is replaced by a simple concept which is made to look complex by means of cool-sounding terminology and random mathematical formulas. In the original movie, someone familiar with mathematics could follow the lines of thought of the characters, and people unfamiliar with maths could still feel that there was something substantial to it. In Cube 2, nobody understands what's happening, and this seems to include the makers of the movie themselves. Next, the original movie featured some gruesome yet inventive ways in which many of the characters died, involving traps with wires, fire, acid and so on. In 'Cube 2', characters are killed by computer graphics -- literally. If you expect more of the visceral gore like in Cube, you'll be heavily disappointed. Moreover, the effects looks cheap and dated. They're so obviously synthetic that it's distracting. Finally, there's a whole set of fresh actors. Unfortunately, the acting is rather bad. Unlike in the original 'Cube', I didn't care about any of the characters. Some even irritated me to such a degree that I wanted them to die quickly.

'Cube 2: Hypercube' feels as if somebody thought the original 'Cube' could be improved by throwing a bigger budget to it, and a crew which is skilled and has good tools, but has no clue of what made the original so good. It's a bit as if they just learned about the concept of a hypercube and found it so cool, that they thought a movie mostly based on this concept would be equally cool.

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7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Hyper-boob. Cube 2. This time its bore...., 10 August 2004

Author: Rob Taylor (Rob_Taylor) from London

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In the beginning there was Cube. And the Gods of Hollywood looked upon Cube and saw that it was good. And the Gods said "Let there be a sequel". And lo! There came to be Hypercube. And the Gods smiled, and thought of the money they would make from Hypercube, and they pronounced it good. <spoilers ahead, oh yeah!>

In fact, Hypercube is crap. It's an almost identical clone of Cube, but without the originality. People are trapped in a cube and must find a way out. Except, and here's the cool plot device the writers came up with, there isn't a way out! Gasp then, as our motley collection of people struggle pointlessly to escape the Maze of Doom (tm). Swoon as they avoid death narrowly in one scene, only to die horribly in the next. Frown as they reappear out of another dimension like the shopkeeper from Mr Ben. Wonder futilely at the ridiculous traps and why they exist at all. Scratch thine head as you wonder what the Hell is the point of any of it.

I'm afraid it's not a film I'll be watching again any time soon. At least in the first film they had a chance of solving the cube and escaping. Here there is no solution, just an endless parade of overacted paranoia and techno-drivel. I can't have been the only viewer trying hard to figure out the "60659" clue along with the trapped inhabitants, only to find out the "shocking" truth near the end. Shocking that is, in its dire un-imaginativeness.

Top marks to the set-designer team though. They must have been laughing all the way to bar with all the free time they had after designing one room.

This film did teach me one very valuable lesson, however. If your screensaver ever escapes from your PC it'll mince you into pieces so tiny you won't even leave a bloodstain!

Why I watched to the end I'll never know. And even then, right at the end, the shocks keep on coming. The sole survivor of the whole sorry mess gets offed casually. Way to get me to watch another one! Not!

The over-riding impression of this film is a rip-off sequel designed to get fans of the original back in the seats. There's no originality and precious little entertainment value. Nearly all of the characters are irritating to a greater or lesser extent and the final scenes are awful, full of Lawnmower Man quality graphics and stupidity. And the ending is deeply annoying even for one such as myself who has an intense dislike of Hollywood happy endings.

Avoid it. You'll thank me.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
So Frustratingly Disappointing !!!, 6 July 2004
Author: jon-510 from Melbourne,Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Cube 2 is one thing, Frustrating. It's frustrating because it has so many elements that are available to build something brilliant with ... and it just lets them go. Its like watching a child playing with a puzzle that is 2 year levels below its capabilities, and going "Come on, that piece goes there...yeeees, no! no! THAT piece goes there! Oh come onnnnnnn....". Were the director and writers both suffering strokes, or in some other way severely retarded ??

SPOILERS WARNING (applies to both films!)

Really Nice Elements:

* The ghostly clean white rooms and sexy doors.

* The 'stalactite'-like qualities (and sound) of the traps and the idea that they were some kind of 'quantum effect' rather than physical.

* That heart-pump moment when the nutty woman looks through the floor door and we at first think she is looking into a mirror - THAT was the point where I sat up and thought "Wow, this movie might end up being really good!" - More Fool Me.

* The music, which was _perfect_.

* The time effects.

* The idea that it is some kind of quantum construct, and therefore the background thought that perhaps they could just _damage_ their way out of it was out of the question (I really think that in the real world the first Cube would have lasted about 24 hours tops, before the crew bashed their way out of the bottom of it ripping off bits of system and trap to help them build tools - but of course thats not the POINT of the first story!).

* The idea that it was generated from this vast pool of water somehow - it was beautiful, like it really was a 'place' of some kind, just 'offset' from this world.

Things That Wrecked It Utterly:

* The appallingly disgustingly crap ending. YOU DO NOT just kill off a major character right at the end!! Go ask any crime writer. You CANNOT do it and get away with it. It will guarantee that nobody will buy your next book - they will borrow it off a friend just to find out of that character really is dead or not and if that character IS dead, goodbye writing career its been nice knowing you. After the revelation of the water pool, after that beautiful display of the 'wainscoting' of the world, a view behind the scenes, and just before that the great sequence of the cube collapsing, SUDDENLY there is this pathetic X Files lets get depressing because we can bit - RIGHT AT THE END !!!!! Shoot director. Shoot writers. Destroy film. Start again. Just on that point alone.

* The traps. What is going on here ??? And they're _intelligent_ now ??? GIVE ME A BREAK. The whole premise in the first cube is that the traps were blind, but completely unforgiving, and diabolically, ingeniously different so you never knew what to look for. The second cube's traps are pathetic. They look gorgeous, but you can outrun them!! And that spinning cube thing.

Give it up guys, save the money, it didn't save the film, in fact it did the opposite - it was arbitrary, stupid and pointless, which was such a shame because the way it formed and dissolved was rather beautiful. Idiot kid with puzzle frustration abounds here.

* The fact this cube could not be solved. Yes OK the joke was that all you had to do was wait in the first room that you were safe in (a reference to the first film), in fact any room would do, but ... arg! sorry its just not ENOUGH. There needed to be something that they had to solve, some deeper structure that had to be unravelled. There had to be some outside chance that they could compromise the thing, or fight back, that ever present glimmer of hope that is one of the most disturbing things about the first film.

* The hypercube pseudo-maths. Yes OK they explained a hypercube/tesseract. Big deal, it had pretty much NOTHING to do with the structure of the Cube. The repeating room in different time lines idea was very nice, but it had nothing to do with hypercubes unfortunately. This really disappointed me, when your realize that a film that seems to be hard headed is actually full of techno waffle it pretty much destroys it.

* The total lack of character development. The characters, including the cube itself, _were_ the first film. When you only have one set, ie. you have a stage play basically, you have to develop the characters, the widgets and wadgets aren't enough.

* The nutty professor - I wanted her to die horribly in about the first minute she turned up. By the time she did she had already battered me into appallingly bad acting numbness.

* The 'nice guy' - ditto.

* The fact that nobody just KO'd simon in the back of the head rather than put up with his crap (actually this annoyed me with respect to Quentin - who was MUCH better played incidentally! - in the first film, though Worth finally takes action)

* The fact that the plot stopped halfway before the end. Its the idiot child with the puzzle thing again.

In Short - go back and try again kiddies. You made a very nice palette but then you painted a finger-painting with it, and since you were trying to honour a modernist, minimalist masterpiece (the first film), this is simply Not Good Enough. 2 out of 10.

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Hyperdense Hypercube. What is the plot again?, 2 May 2005

Author: (Serata) from Somewhere lost in a cube

So the math took a backseat to the first movie. This one, however, is all about the completely ridiculous result of what happens when you build a hypercube. Where did the simplicity go? Where's the magical screen writing that made the first so excellent? Fans of the first one absolutely should see this movie, you'll be pleasantly surprised at the new things Hypercube throws at you. Literally throws at you, in fact. And throws at the seven new characters.

But where did it go wrong? The opening sequence is nothing short of the greatest moment the Cube series has ever seen. Draws you straight into the action, even if the first actor is bad at falling... up. From that point on, the characters take a seat and move along with a poor attempt at additional plot. We don't ever get any insight into character motive, as we did in the first movie. This person goes insane... wait, explain that one again? In addition to no character motive, the characters are completely static. Unless you had seen the first movie and were actually expecting focus on character archs, you would find yourself thinking how terribly predictable the characters are. Even more, the Cube's logical image has been destroyed, replaced by this machine gone horribly wrong in the fourth dimension.

The best part of the film is how it continually keeps you on your feet, long after you've seen it. What gave me hope for Lion's Gate was the frightening beginning and the fantastic ending. I'm still plagued by social, theoretical and mathematical problems posed in this second installment, and the ending will not disappoint. However, for those looking for intelligent theoretical sci-fi, I would look to the first, and watch it perhaps a second time.

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9 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
An approach to the fourth dimension like this could equally be summed up in four letters, 28 December 2004

Author: jacksonbannear from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A well paced film, regrettably destitute of adequate substance to justify its pacing in the first place. The film appears 'clinical' by all aesthetic inspections, but it's just bright light. Boring bright light. Sadly this film trails distantly upon the heels of its infamous predecessor, "Cube", and fails to deliver a single morsel of the miasma and inspiration that is, simply put, the result of hard working frustrated budget film making.

The cast is forgettable, the effects are so prosaic and ordinary they barely register, and do well to accommodate the actors' approach to the script, that swiftly descends into a flat-lining melodrama. Another one for the video stores, but worth seeing simply for sake of bewilderment. Insincere performances plague the story that is otherwise undoubtedly fascinating to those inclined to logic and suspended logic: an old woman with a probable vat of (evil) all-knowing masquerading as a mental disorder; a ruffian Sgt Barnes with a big fist and an even bigger attitude; a fourteen year old blind girl who happens to be God; a horny whiz kid; a seductress in a red dress; and all the rest have thankfully escaped memory.

It has the simplicity of a cartoon, posturing above the radical theorising of the tesseract and fourth dimensional travel. By the middle of the film, all universal laws of the three dimensional human world are broken, as parallel universes flood the hypercube with a deluge of characters believed to be already dead. If it's a revelation of morality you're after, this might not be quite the thing as it undermines and subverts all basic tenets of value and goodness to the possibilities of near infinity – a pitfall into a mirror room of conscienceless murder, romance and panic. However, this idea is barely heeded in the excess of rather short-sighted visual horrors that do more to ridicule than to stun. And to add insult to already monolithic injury, Hypercube's final scene epitomises everything "Cube" intentionally set out to avoid.

While the hypercube itself exists in a place well and truly beyond the three dimensions of the world as we know it, the cast and the story's realisation barely manage to make it in to the first.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Weak entry, could've been better, 18 February 2007
Author: slayrrr666 (slayrrr666@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, Ca

"Cube 2: Hypercube" is a weak and confusing entry after such a great original.

**SPOILERS**

Waking up alone, Kate Filmore, (Kari Matchett) Simon Grady, (Geraint Wynn Davies) Sasha, (Grace Lynn Kung) Max Reisler, (Matthew Ferguson) Jerry Whitehall, (Neil Crone) Tom McGuire, (Bruce Gray) and Mrs. Paley, (Barbara Gordon) each find themselves trapped in a large structure together. Trying to determine a way out of the structure, they find it is a series rooms with weird numbers scratched all over the walls. Discovering that they are in a hypercube, which has four dimensions across it and can fold back in on itself, which forces them to believe that an alternate reality is inside, as well as their self. Forced to take action, they try to solve the riddle of the cube and escape before they're killed off.

The Good News: There isn't a whole lot here to really like. The hyper-dimensionality allows for a lot of fascinating ideas to play around with. Gravity operates at a different angle in some rooms, time operates at a different pace in other rooms so that at time, they see other people alternately sped up or slowed down, and of course, doors open up into alternate realities and points in time, which allows them to constantly meet different versions of themselves. In one simply fascinating scene, one of the characters opens a door and sees them-self staring back. Reaching out to grasp the hand, another character appears from behind, kills the parallel version before being wiped out by a wall of crystalline shapes. It's a compulsively fascinating moment that works quite effectively for it's creativity. Another scene shows on of them stabbing a character in the eye, only to then turn around and encounter them on the other side of the room a moment later, having aged several years and seeking revenge. Outside of these great ideas, the film is pretty hollow.

The Bad News: There's a lot here that doesn't work. As a whole, this is a mess of a movie. It differs so much from the original that it's almost in a different series, with only the main premise and the cube structure remaining. Gone are the numerous, and quite cool, traps from the original, replaced here with a trap that will spring only if too much time is spent in a room rather than being the structure of the room itself, and in their place is a much too talky, confused, and poorly written movie. Not once does it fall together so that a simply answer can be arrived at that will explain everything, and instead, it just chooses to get more and more incoherent ending up being way too complicated for its own good. Even the traps that do spring up aren't that great, being simply a multiplying square that morphs into a spinning shape, not at all that creative or impressive. The laser-wall isn't that bad, but otherwise, the traps in here are barely worth mentioning, not being that great at all and nowhere near the inventiveness or cruelty of the originals. The extreme amount of down-time in here is also a problem, since it takes nearly forever for the film to get going. After introducing themselves, it takes nearly forty minutes before the first trap is sprung, and that's far too long to be standing around arguing with each other. That's the main gist of the middle of the film, long sequences of everyone arguing about what each clue supposedly means or where each person came from. This is a downer and makes the middle seem like it takes forever, and coupled with the weak, confusing story and lack of inventive traps, really brings this down.

The Final Verdict: With a couple of decent scenes and ideas thrown in, this is a really hard movie to recommend to anyone. Fans of the original might like it, but it only has to be the most forgiving fans to do so. If you want to really watch it, watch it before seeing the original or not back-to-back, the differences will be quite startling.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity

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15 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
Not too bad, but part 1 is still far better, 17 May 2003
Author: Katatonia from Missouri

I am a big fan of the first Cube movie and have seen it at least 15 times. I had high hopes for Hypercube but i didn't expect it to be as good or better than the first. I think people would enjoy it more if they didn't expect unreasonable expectations for this one.

Hypercube has some flaws, but it is still entertaining. If you love Science and Physics (like i do), then you will love some of the questions this film proposes.

I liked the darker feel of the first film more so than Hypercube. The "Cubes" in this one are basically very bright white and it is sometimes very intrusive to the eyes. I also would have liked less characters in this one. One thing that worked so well in Cube 1 were the interesting characters and the fact that there were not many in the film at all. This doesn't always work in most films, but it worked perfectly in Cube 1.

If there was one thing which i really did not like in Hypercube, it would have to be the ending. It was very cheesy and way over the top. It seemed like an episode of The X Files, which works just fine for a Sci-fi TV series, but it just didn't work here.

So, is Hypercube worth viewing? Yes it is, simply because some viewers will like it more than others. It is still a better movie than most of the Sci-fi movies that have been released lately. If you love the original Cube you should check out Hypercube, if only to watch it one time...

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