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The Watcher (2022)
Total waste of time
First the positives: a few good scares along the way, Jennifer Coolidge is entertaining to watch.
And the negatives: everything else, but especially the story. It just doesn't make any sense and the further you get, the more you start to feel like the writer is taking you for a ride, just to annoy you and waste your time. It's like they rolled the dice of psycho-thriller-movie tropes to work out what happens next, not bothering with whether it fitted in with what had already happened.
Here, the actors do get some points for acting as if what happens is at all believable. Reading the reviews I realised it was written by a writer of American Horror Story - so now it all makes sense. Glossy exterior but it falls apart as soon as you touch it. Woeful.
Annihilation (2018)
Three reasons you may not like this film
I found this film tense, thrilling, beautiful, imaginative and intriguing. I'm bemused by the number of highly negative reviews here, but have three possible explanations. The first is that the main protagonists are all women, which seems to bother some viewers. I found this aspect a breath of fresh air, with interesting and strong female characters that develop and are revealed over the course of the film. The second that may not appeal to lovers of standard Hollywood fare is that the pace is somewhat slow and thoughtful. However, this adds a wonderful air of mystery and suspense. I'm pleased to see another reviewer below also saw a comparison with Tarkovsky's Stalker in this sense (though of course nothing can compare to his cinematography). Here, the tranquil or tense atmosphere is punctuated by some scenes of exceptional horror that really shake you. And the third is that there is no nicely packaged "answer". There are several possible explanations for the "shimmer" as we go on, but I don't think there is any clear right one. The characters actually discuss this ambiguity themselves, so I do believe it is completely intentional. Finally I would add that the music is amazing - some amazing atmospheric industrial sounding tracks by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. One of the rare films I would watch again.
Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)
You still have to watch it!
Since most reviews here are damningly negative of Cube 2, I feel I have to post one opposing view, just so that possible fans won't skip this film altogether. Yes, the characters are rather stereotypical, and basically imported directly from Cube 1, but there is enough mystery about some of them to make you wonder about their real motives and/or origins. I personally think the effects and visuals (the cube) look wonderful. But maybe it's just cos I was brought up on things like Doctor Who and Blakes 7!
The mathematics and physics behind the cube remain intriguing throughout the film, as you gradually learn how the work in the cube. My interest was retained despite the fact that I was already very familiar with the concept of a 4-dimensional cube (`hypercube') and some theories about how they might `appear' to someone inside them. On the other hand, maybe this is why I was intrigued - to see how they translated these theories into a film (answer: very intelligently). I think that the script writers managed very well to combine interesting evolving inter-personal dynamics with the bizarre realities of physics (time and 4 dimensions).
Although the film was very similar in some ways to Cube 1, it was cunningly different in others. For example, the numbers identifying the rooms, vital to the progression of the first film, were in some ways a red herring in the second. I am somewhat ambivalent about the ending. I think it was acceptable, if you caught what happened exactly (I've only seen one review here (Sareji's) which seemed to actually catch what happened at the end), but as others have pointed out, it lacks the much deeper and fascinating metaphorical meaning about society and individual responsibility.
Although slightly flawed, this is an intelligent and unusual film, and, I think, deserves to be seen, but only after Cube 1, because it plays with some of the viewers expectations, and extends on many of the ideas of the first film.