Monday, October 31, 2016

Manic Movie Month: Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)

Even if "Cube" never became a big hit in the box office, the good reviews and overall appreciation was enough to eventually make a sequel. It ultimately took 5 years for that sequel to happen, but did so with very different personnel and budget. "Cube 2: Hypercube" was distributed by Lionsgate (the same company that would later distribute the "Saw" movies), and directed by Andrzej Sekula, which meant that the writing was not done by anyone who had something to do with the original. Horror sequels in a nutshell, am I right?

Anyway, "Cube 2: Hypercube" may share the same name with its predecessor, but it is a different movie. The plot is still the same, a bunch of strangers trapped together in a massive contraption that consists of endless cube rooms, all trying to get out. This time however, they are not trapped in just a simple cube, but in a Tesseract (in other words, a four dimensional cube). This forces the victims to also factor in the time aspect, because it makes it all that more complicated. It will certainly not be easy to get out this time, even if there are no rooms that are filled with deadly traps.

Spoilers from this point on, read at your own risk

So, the basic plot is more or less the same as the original, which fine, but they had to freshen it up a bit, and while they did that, it just tears everything apart. "Cube" was a great movie because it was simplistic, it did not over do things, just made everything as minimalistic as possible. "Cube 2" tries to achieve more, and it just ends up being weird and dumb. We got parallel universes, teleportation, gravity shifts, and no real laws of physics what so ever here, and it is so hard to keep it up as a viewer because it is just explained haphazardly. Why is this possible? No one obviously knows, because it is never fully explained.

Another thing that makes me confused are the characters in this movie. The first movie had some decent characters, and although we did not get to know them all too much, they did serve their purpose. However, in "Cube 2", we have a bunch of idiots. We got seven main characters. Kate Filmore (Kari Matchett) who are the most reasonable one in my opinion (even though she makes some dumb decisions throughout the movies that should have gotten her killed), Simon Grady (Geraint Wyn Davies) who is a private detective who acts like a serial killer from the get go (nice foreshadowing!), Sasha (Grace Lynn Kung) who is blind, giving her an obvious disadvantage, Max Reisler (Matthew Ferguson) who is a game developer, Jerry Whitehall (Neil Crone) who is an engineer and a typical corny white male American, Julia (Lindsey Connell) who is a lawyer (although she looks and acts like something more glamorous), and Mrs. Paley (Barbara Gordon), a senior who seems to suffer from some sort of mental disease, probably Alzheimer. This is just a group that makes you wish that they all end up dead, because they are annoying, have no growth in the movie what so ever, and their dialogue between each other is as useless as talking to a wall. No sympathy here at all for anyone.

And just like the last movie, everything is going to be solved through math, with Jerry as the genius in the group. However, this is the point where I am certain that the writers tried to bite off more than they could chew, because nothing, literally nothing here is explained on how to get out. We get some explanation how this tesseract could even be possible, but it is far from enough. Throughout the movie, we get to see the numbers 60659, which was written by some other dude (who is dead), and nothing is explained to how he got to that number. Man, it is like going through college again, and it is painful.

As for the suspense, there is close to none. There are a couple of times in the movie when the group is in real danger, but once again, nothing is explained on why these dangerous things are happening. They are not traps like the last movie, so what the fuck are they? There is especially one point in the movie that fucks my mind up so badly, it is when the group encounter a seemingly harmless floating thing. Jerry touches it, and it starts multiplying, growing larger and deadlier by the second. While it does look cool, it is still stupid as hell, and it also looks fake as shit, and when Kate is trying to save Sasha, who is cowering in the corner, all I am screaming is "KILL THEM ALREADY!!!", but nope, it apparently acts upon movements, and by pure luck, they are saved. Jesus Christ, the coolest moment of the movie is ruined by stupidity.

The worst part of the movie still though is the character progression, because the few progressions that are there happens so suddenly that it is just ridiculous. You will be baffled when you see that Julia just out of nowhere not only kiss Max, but fully makes out and have hot passionate zero gravity sex with him, a act that seems to go until the becoming one fused rotting carcass. It is an image I cannot get out of my head, because it makes no fucking sense what so ever. The rest of the characters have either no progression what so ever, or have progressions that are extremely boring and predictable. Oh god, I can't keep this up anymore, get to the ending already...

Ending

So, eventually the group find out that everyone have connections with this corporation called IZON, the ones that made this hypercube in the first place. While that is nice and all, it still does not make up for all the bullshit characters, including Sasha's big reveal that she goes under the pseudonym Alex Trusk, a computer hacker that found out the secrets of IZON and made an escape to the only place they would not dare to go, the tesseract. Why did she wait to give them all this information? Well, it does not matter, because Simon is on a rampage, killing three different Jerry's and several  more Becky Young's (the girl he had been searching for before getting in the tesseract), and apparently eating them (!?). He is officially more fucked up than Quinten, but he is as stupid too, getting killed eventually by Kate.

So Kate is the only one left alive, and realizing that the tesseract is collapsing, repeating itself over and over again, she ultimately find out what the deceased Dr. Phil Rosenzweig had been trying to solve, the time when the tesseracts implodes, at 6:06:59. Once again, no explanation on why it implodes on that time or how he got the the conclusion. Pure confusion.

Kate ultimately takes Sasha's necklace, jumps through the portal, and wakes up in an old airport hangar, in a cgi pool, where she gets carried to some high end guys, asking if she got the job done. She did, because the necklace contained secret information of IZON, and since the job is done, Kate gets shot in the head, and the corporate guys tells the big boss that phase 2 is complete. I ultimately got my wish, all main characters are dead, but I still feel like shit. What a crappy ending, and it is obvious that it hinted on a third movie (which eventually happened, only it was a prequel). Unlike the last movie, there is no bliss here, only relief that it is finally over.

Summary

Everything that was done right in "Cube", "Cube 2" more or less fucked up. This is a movie that tried so hard, and got so far, but it did not matter in the end, because it was badly made from the start. There is no suspense, the plot has tons of holes in it, the acting is average at best, and the characters are complete idiots. I guess some small parts are kind of okay, and that the ending was unsuspected, but it does not help to ease my pain at all, it just stinks bullshit from a mile away. "Cube 2: Hypercube" is an awful movie, do not watch it, because it just does not make any sense at all. Math, not even once... or twice in this matter.

Rating: 2,5/10

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