Cube 2 - Hypercube
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Movie Reviews of Cube 2 - Hypercube
Movie Review: hmmm...
Summary: 3 Stars
in-ter-es-ting and od. a few good twists like someone mentioned people that were dead came back, but its made to confuse you but you can still follow the plot. mediocr movie. wouldn't see it twice. only saw it cause of geraint wyn davies, im a forever knight fan. i would suggest watching it on tv or renting it, not buying it.overall not bad, i think. good if you like seeing GWD go insane :P
Movie Review: Not like the first, but okay.
Summary: 3 Stars
I now have Cube 1, 2, and 3. The 1st and 3rd are the best, the 2nd is okay but not as intense or real looking as the others - to much computer work. All and all though a good night time Sci-Fi to enjoy.
Thomas
Movie Review: very interesting plot semi so so execution
Summary: 3 Stars
liek saw cube has an oustanding presmie but liek saw it also fails mostly to make good on the surrounding execution
the ideas are awesome
be fun to see a bigger budget rendition
Movie Review: Cube Cubed
Summary: 2 Stars
I find myself experiencing two schools of thought when it comes to the CUBE series. On the one hand, they are all poorly acted, with mostly redundant plots and predictable dialogue. On the other hand, their structures are so blatantly philosophical, so unabashadly symbolic, it's kind of a treat to sit back and fiddle with the concepts it represents. Sorta the same way you'd fill in a few of the boxes on a crossword puzzle you know you're never going to finish. It's addictive like that; a plate of cheese that people talk around even as they pick it apart.
And if you're wondering if these plates have the kind of cheese you like, then this review is for you.
CUBE - People wake up in a labyrinthine cube with no idea of how they got there or why they've been kidnapped. They must navigate through a series of deadly traps, without knowing just what it is they're headed for (or even where it is). A doctor, a famous escapist, a cop, a mentally handicapped fella -- personalities clash, and what could've been a tight little parable of existentialism becomes a squabbling social commentary about the brutality of big, mean men. It's tense, but not paced particularly well, although the ending has a thankful spot of hope. Like the Rubik's Cube, most people will find this cube compelling for a few twists and turns, but are unlikely to find the ending all that rewarding. 3 1/2 stars.
CUBE 2 - HYPERCUBE - The cube has gone hyper! Dimensional that is. Gone is the first cube's relentless dankness, replaced here by sterile, unapologetic white. Although the new cube is also fraught with hidden perils, these are mostly of the multidimensional variety. What this means for you, the viewer, is that the traps are now CGI contraptions that look not convincing in the least. It also means that many rooms have their own gravity and "variable time speeds." Oh, I almost forgot, the most awesome thing it means is that it exists in multiple dimensions at once, so there are apparently about fifteen different copies of each person wandering around at the same time.
Did I say "awesome"? I'm sorry. I meant "unfortunate." Because this cube has basically no rules, virtually anything can happen, making what DOES happen less important in the long run. We've got some crazy characters -- a senile physicist, a blind girl, a private detective, a video game desinger and a lawyer -- and they all have connections with a scary-big corporation named Izon, but who cares? The least plot driven of the three movies, this film is also the darkest (in spite of how well-lit each frame is). And, of course, it succumbs to the same mistake as the first film. Instead of being about the little people coming to terms with the bizarre futility of their circumstances, it devolves into a big man going crazy and chasing everyone around with a knife. 2 stars.
CUBE ZERO - I don't know why they called this CUBE ZERO instead of CUBE CUBED. Maybe it's supposed to be a prequel, but I doubt it. It's possible they just thought "zero" sounded better than "three." Or maybe it's because, for the first time ever, the viewer is treated to life outside of the cube.
Don't worry. The cube is still there, just as gloomy and lethal as ever (and in far more vividly gross ways), but the group of people inside the box are at least as important as the people watching them. The watchers in this case are a couple of be-jumpsuited guys named Wynn and Dodd who sit around, play chess, and record people's dreams. These guys give the series a chance to do some more overt navel-gazing, but the end effect isn't that bad, even if it mostly just feels like a Pinter play. Specifically, THE DUMBWAITER. (Read it. It's good.)
Still, no matter how full of dread and terror his plays were, Pinter always kept the terrible and dreaded things off-stage. When Wynn begins to question his duties, eventually taking drastic measures to get some answers, he causes chaos in and out of the cube. Enter three of the dreaded higher-ups. An effete and over-acted character named Jax pops in, followed closely by two well-groomed go-fers. (Everytime Jax talked to them, I could swear he was calling them Thin and Quickly, but the credits list them as Finn and Quigley.) They are heralded with whimsically creepy violin music, like an incidental theme song, and although they aren't fooling around, their presence makes the whole thing far less ominous than it normally would.
Still, the wackiness they provde is menacing and self-assured, and it disguises a story with far more heart and smarts than its predecessors. Even if the story contains, yet again, a big, angry man chasing people around, that is a minor part of the much larger, much more hopeful picture. Satisfying in a lot of ways, this film also pays homage to fans who've endured the films from the beginning. 4 stars
Movie Review: Maybe there is a "Cube 1.5" out there we can watch instead
Summary: 2 Stars
There was a point while watching "Cube 2: Hypercube" that I found myself thinking this movie was half as good as the original, therefore it deserved half the rating I gave "Cube." The other movie I was reminded of, strangely enough, was "A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge," because that was another time where I found myself wondering if the people who made the sequel had watched the original. Yes, we once again have a group of strangers making their way through a series of cubes, wondering how they got there, what is going on, and how they are supposed to get out.
But whereas "Cube" was grounded in reality to the extent that if you had the money and the resources you could create a maze like that, "Cube 2: Hypercube" goes the science fiction route where the laws of physics do not apply, especially to the laws of time and space. Consequently, this 2002 film from director Andrzej Sekula does not really qualify as a sequel because except from the notion of the cube maze and one character's complaints that there are no numbers and that the first one had rules, there is nothing that really connects the first film with this one. That cold, hard fact is reinforced by comparing the conclusions to the two films, which try to play with the audience's minds in totally different ways. No wonder so many people are bitterly disappointed when they see this one. I did not care that the first film did not provide answers to wrap everything up, and I was rather insulted by what "Hypercube" tries to pawn off on us in its place at the end.
The alternative hypothesis for watching this film is that if you are like the characters in the film who are smart enough to have a reasonable but convoluted explanation for what is going on, then you may be able to appreciate this film on a level that most of us are just not going to be able to access. For that matter, if this was the first "Cube" movie it would have picked up another star. The tag line in the trailer for "Cube 2" is "There are no rules," which makes it clear the makers of this film are only too happy to embrace the idea that they have thrown out everything that made the original film so engrossing. The creative death traps that were in some of the cubes were what gave the first film its edge, but here we have some weird entity whose setup is not worth the payoff.
The characters are similar to the first time around, although there are more of them so that the potential body count can be a lot higher, which is not really a good thing given that we have lost the creative ways of meeting death in the cubes from last time (you can see how impossible it is to judge this film without using the original as the frame of reference and the standard for condemnation). In "Cube" there were some interesting character dynamics going on and we had the feeling that the maze was more a psychological test than anything else, where the trapped humans were the key resource needed to get out alive, but too many of them were busy losing it to work together successfully to get everybody out alive. At least in the first film if you did not like a character there was the possibility of a gruesome death involving razor wire or other interesting things. No such luck here.
I should have known this film was in trouble as soon as I saw the inside of the first cube, which was bigger, brighter and cleaner than the smaller, darker and dirtier cubes of (altogether now) the original film. Maybe their big mistake was in thinking that using the same cube again would not go over with fans. Let me just say I think they were wrong. I am going to be watching "Cube Zero" next and I have to admit I am apprehensive because I have to be open to the possibility it could be even worse than this one. Maybe, if I am lucky, I can pretend "Cube 2: Hypercube" never took place and pretend "Cube Zero" is the true sequel.
If you are a physicist and actually like what they say is going on in this film, then you will probably enjoy the DVD extras here. You have a director's commentary by Sekula that goes along with the documentary on the special effects, both of which will give you a better idea of what is happening in the film than watching the film itself. One of the problems with this film turns out to be that they were driven by what neat CGI effects they could come up with more so than by the story (another big and classic movie making mistake). You also get some deleted scenes (including an alternate ending which adds insult to injury because it tries to insist that there is a logical connection between the two films even if we ordinary folk are too stupid to figure it out), several trailers, storyboard and stills galleries, none of which will help you like "Cube 2: Hypercube" more than "Cube."