Movies - Cube 2: Hypercube

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	Movies - Cube 2: Hypercube

Cube 2: Hypercube is the sequel of the cult-classic science-fiction movie Cube. Released in 2002, Hypercube had a bigger budget than its predecessor, and a new director, Andrzej Sekula.

Cube 2 is a radical departure from the original. The dusky, dingy rooms of the first movie are replaced with high-tech, brightly-lit chambers; the plausible technology of the traps — flamethrowers and extending spikes — are replaced with computer-generated imagery of shimmering translucent walls that disintegrate matter and floating spheres of razor-sharp angles. The group discovers that the cubes are moving, not with lumbering slowness, but instantaneously. They realize they are inside a functioning tesseract in which gravity shifts, space distorts and time splits off into many separate paths. While some hailed the sequel as inspired madness (it scored more highly on Rottentomatoes.com than the first Cube film) others derided it as brilliantly conceived but poorly executed. Particular criticisms include the level of acting and downbeat ending.

Time and Space

In the Hypercube, time and space seem to merge into one (hence, a 4-dimensional shape). The film has several facets. :*First is the interpersonal relationships between the different people who find themselves inside this prison and the choices they make regarding survival. :*Second, the reason each person is inside the prison, which has to do with their various relationships to a defense company called Izon. :*Third, there is a sub-plot which by the end of the film takes over from the simpler story of survival. It regards the possible existence of a hacker called Alexander Trust, who some of the characters believe is linked to the Cube's construction.

Characters and relationships

The first angle takes on a unique twist in the unusual environment of the tesseract. No fixed concept of time and space means that some events happen repeatedly. Also within a tesseract, people can meet themselves. This coupled with the incarceration has an obvious impact on the characters. Indeed, one of them - Jerry - is killed (and eaten, it is implied) by another character again and again. The softer, more human Jerry, oblivious to the plights of his alternate selves seems to fall victim to the same character throughout the latter stages of the film. After each murder, the cannibal takes Jerry's watch.

By the end of the movie we see that the cannibal (now aged by many years) has dozens of identical watches up and down both arms, telling us that he has survived for years in the hypercube through cannibalism.

This is an interesting allegory of the will to survive: even though there is seemingly no way to escape the hypercube, and no real quality of life to be had in killing and eating 'the same' man over and over, our cannibal continues to pursue his goal: survival.

Although, on a more existential level, perhaps the plight of poor Jerry is something we can take "comfort" in: that no matter what happens to "me", there is always another "me" which exists in an alternate universe, who survives.

Unfortunately for Jerry, if we are to assume that all the alternate dimensions are intersecting in the hypercube, it may be that all the Jerrys in exisence are doomed to be eaten by the same man!

Relationships to Izon

Each of the characters begins to realize that it is his or her relationship with a company called Izon that seems to be the common thread between the prisoners. To one degree or another it appears that each character posed a threat to the Cube's existence becoming known by the wider public.

There is a private detective, Simon Grady, who was searching for a missing Izon worker, Rebecca Young(we later find out she was imprissoned in the cube too).
There is a computer hacker, Max (who is involved in a legal dispute with a company that stole his idea for a game -- that company used the idea to make the cube and is a unit of Izon).
A female lawyer, Julia (who is the defence lawyer for Izon in Max's legal case).
Mrs. Paley, a mathematician with Alzheimer's (who was working for Izon).
Colonel Thomas H. Maguire (who seems to have been intimately linked with the project).
Jerry Whitehall, a designer (who worked on some of the cube's mechanisms).
A blind teenager called Sasha (whose link only becomes known in the last few minutes of the film).
And a psychologist, Kate Filmore (whose link is also revealed at the film's end in a plot twist).

Dr Rozenzweig, a nobel prize nominee. Was imprisoned within the cube for a while and was found by Kate's group.

The sub-plot

As characters haggle about who could be responsible for building the Cube and what its purpose might be, the hacker states he knows who is responsible. He says a mythical hacker known as Alexander Trust is behind the project. His evidence is that the Cube bears all the hallmarks of a computer game and fits in with the way Trust thinks. Other characters dispute this assertion (most notably Jerry, who believes Trust is a myth). The film ends with the revelation that the blind lady Sasha is infact the real life Alexander Trust. She explains that she was horrified to learn people are being put into the cube. She stole important information to reveal its existence and then hid inside the Cube, reasoning that her employeers wouldn't search for her there. In the film's closing minutes, after revealing her true identity, she is killed by the cannibal and her necklace taken by the psychologist. Upon retrieving the necklace, the psychologist escapes the Cube and it is revealed that all along she was working for its builders. She hands the necklace over to her bosses because it contains a data storage device. They congratulate her and while she is being thanked, she is executed by being shot in the head.

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