Cube 2: Hypercube

Cube 2: Hypercube
Cube 2: Hypercube film poster
Directed by	Andrzej Sekula
Written by	Sean Hood
Produced by	Ernie Barbarash Peter Block Suzanne Colvin
Starring	Kari Matchett Geraint Wyn Davies Grace Lynn Kung
Cinematography	Andrzej Sekula
Edited by	Mark Sanders
Music by	Norman Orenstein
Distributed by	Lions Gate Films
Release date	2002
Running time	95 min
Language	English

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

The industrial-style 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 floating objects with razor-sharp blades and translucent walls that decompose matter. The cubes now do not move with lumbering slowness, but instantaneously. Different chambers inside the tesseract also distort gravity, time and space, leading to alternate realities. While some hailed the sequel as inspired madness, others derided it as brilliantly conceived but poorly executed. Particular criticisms include the quality of acting and bizarre ending.

Plot

The film starts with Izon employee Rebecca Young waking up from a state of sleep, and finds herself in a white cubical cell with a door on all six sides. Flustered, she opens one of the touch-activated doors on the wall and attempts to flee.

The film then centres on another character, Kate Filmore, as she awakens in another identical cell. She proceeds to an adjacent room, where she finds a slumbering Simon Grady, and attempts to wake him. When he finally gains consciousness however, he pins her to the floor and, in a state of confusion, interrogates her brashly about his current circumstance. When he eventually frees Kate, she dashes off to another room to escape from Simon, and meets blind teenager Sasha Lee. Before long, yet another character, Jerry Whitehall, stumbles into the same cell.

Whilst contemplating their situations, the trio encounter a fifth character - Max Reisler, who appears to instantaneously switch between adjacent rooms (they will later discover that this phenomenon is due to the swift changing nature of the Cube's individual cells). When Kate, Jerry and Sasha finally catch up with Max, the latter has found Colonel Thomas H. Maguire who has attempted suicide by hanging. The quartet attempt to free the Colonel before he dies, but to no avail. Simon arrives in the same cell by coincidence and manages to help them release Thomas' belt hanging him in the nick of time.

With everyone now in a clearer state of calm, Simon apologizes to Kate and introductions are made. As Kate tends to an asphyxiated Thomas, a new character, Mrs. Paley enters the room and joins the group.

Formalities are cut short when Sasha senses "something wrong" approaching. This later turns out to be a shifting room with faster time moving through their current room, causing everything it engulfs to age quickly. Everyone flees the room, except Thomas, who has made himself believe that he will eventually die in the Cube anyway. He handcuffs himself to the ladder and swallows the key. Kate tries desperately to break the cuffs but to no avail, and she escapes with moments to spare as Thomas dies from aging.

In the safety of the adjacent cell, the group tries to postulate different theories about their situation. They eventually realize that they are in a tesseract with varying times and space, and a mysterious hacker known as Alex Trusk is hypothesized to be responsible for the creation of the Cube. Max agitatedly opens a door to another room where they find Julia Sewell, still asleep, and awakens her.

The group of seven attempts to escape the Cube, but after endless crossings, they are no where nearer to solving the mysteries of the Cube. Mrs. Paley goes delirious and searches for her dog "Skippy", opening up a door in the floor, where she sees herself in an alternate reality being murdered by an alternate Simon. He is then decapitated by a trap after warning the group not to trust Mrs. Paley. This scene shocks the group, but they soon regain composure and fall asleep due to lethargy.

Sasha's acute hearing soon awakens her and she tells Kate that she hears "something wrong". Kate wakes the group and they spot a floating square in the middle of the room as it slowly expands to form a cube. Mrs. Paley extends her hand to touch it. Jerry, sensing danger, lunges forward, telling her to keep her hand back. Unknown to them, the "floating cube" is in fact a floating tesseract of blades that is attracted to movement, and promptly slices Jerry's back. Finally realizing the mortal danger they are in, Kate, Simon, Max, Julia and Mrs. Paley manage to escape to another room as the tesseract continues to grow bigger. Jerry's writhing eventually attracts the blades and he is slashed into numerous pieces. Kate suddenly remembers Sasha, who is still trapped at a corner of the room, and returns to save her. After a close shave with death, Sasha and Kate freeze, motionless, and the tesseract slowly decreases in size and finally disappears due to the apparent lack of movement to trigger the blades. While the pair is now safe, they are separated from the group.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Paley is bound and gagged by Simon, who is convinced that she is putting on an act as a senile old woman, and is in fact behind the creation of the Cube (since she was a past employee of Izon). Their intense confrontation is cut short by the triggering of yet another trap - sharp spikes that protrude from the walls and cut anything in its path. Julia coaxes Simon to save Mrs. Paley, but he opts to stab Paley in the stomach instead, leaving her to die. Appalled by Simon's apparent murder, Max and Julia quickly flee to other rooms to distance themselves from Simon, who barely escapes the trap himself.

Max and Julia soon stop running, and it is then revealed that both are linked to Izon as well. In a moment of heated passion, Julia kisses Max and they have sex. Unknown to them, they are in a room with a faster time speed, hence they age prematurely and soon die while having sex due to overaging.

In the interim, Simon succumbs to stress and goes insane. He meets Jerry from an alternate reality, and proceeds to kill him to eat. It is then implied that Simon goes on and cannibalizes on multiple alternate realities of Jerry to stay alive. He also bumps into Rebecca, who he also murders.

Meanwhile, endless escape attempts have finally taken its toll, and Sasha gives up hope. She also reveals that she is in fact Alex Trusk. Kate, however, refuses to die, and frantically searches for a way out, but each door she opens reveals a disturbing scene from the past (the deaths of Thomas, Jerry, Mrs. Paley, Max and Julia), and finally meets the deranged Simon himself. Kate quickly grabs Simon's knife and stabs him in the eye.

She turns around only to realize that yet another alternate version of Simon, now aged and blind in the left eye, is holding Sasha hostage. He kills Sasha and ambles towards Kate, who escapes through a door that leads to the opposite end of the same room. Simon is taken aback by the uncanny situation, and Kate pounces on him, grabbing his knife and stabbing him to death.

The last survivor of the group, Kate notes the time on Simon's watch, and based on the recurring number "60659" found throughout the Cube, and Sasha's theory of the Cube's impending implosion, she finally deduces that the Cube will implode at 6:06:59. Just as everything around her degrades, Kate grabs Sasha's necklace and opens the door in the floor, revealing a black void. She jumps in as the Cube implodes.

She awakens in a pool of water and is escorted to Izon authorities. It is revealed that Kate was in the Cube for barely seven minutes, and her job was to locate Alex and retrieve the information she stole from Izon. Handing over Sasha/Alex's necklace which contains the stolen information, Kate is then executed with a single shot to the head. The show ends with the Izon authorities reporting that "Phase 2 is terminated".

Alternate ending

The longer alternate ending included in the 'extras' on the DVD reveals the 'owners' to be the government. It is unclear in the shorter version who they are but it is assumed they are Izon. Kate is executed in both versions, though is praised for being the first operative to make it out alive.

Show Themes

Cannibalism

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, Jerry is killed (and eaten, it is implied) by Simon again and again. The softer, more humane Jerry, oblivious to the plights of his alternate selves, seems to fall victim to Simon throughout the later stages of the film. After each murder, Simon takes Jerry's watch.

By the end of the movie we can see that Simon (now aged by many years) has dozens of identical watches up and down both arms, several ID tags (from Rebecca Young whom he also killed) and he tells us that he has survived for years in the hypercube through cannibalism.

This is an 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.

Relationships With Izon

The characters begin 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, possibly leading to their imprisonment.

• Kate Filmore — a psychologist whose link is also revealed at the film's end in a plot twist. The ending suggests Kate to have been sent into the Cube to kill Alex Trusk and retrieve the necklace/recording device. The alternate ending explains her mission in more detail. In both cases, she is killed by a soldier. It is revealed that she was inside the cube for less than 7 minutes. She is portrayed as the most logical and empathetic character in the group, being the only person to risk her life to save Thomas and Sasha.
• Simon Grady — a private detective who was hired to search for the missing Rebecca Young, who was also imprisoned in the Cube. Although a leader figurehead at the start of the show, he later becomes insane, responsible for the deaths of Mrs. Paley, Sasha, Rebecca and multiple alternate reality versions of Jerry. He is stabbed by Kate and dies shortly after.
• Rebecca Young — a missing young Izon worker whose parents hired Simon Grady to find her. She is stabbed (and killed) by Simon.
• Sasha Lee — a blind teenager whose link only becomes known in the last few minutes of the film and is in fact Alex Trusk, the enigmatic hacker. Her neck is broken by Simon. Her acute sense of hearing has saved the group on two occasions - the first being able to warn them about the shifting rooms, which kills Thomas, and the second being the floating spinning square-blade trap that kills Jerry.
• Jerry Whitehall — a designer who worked on some of the Cube's mechanisms including the touch panels for the doors. He also seems to have a rough understanding of Quantum Physics. He is killed by a spinning razor cube trying to save Mrs. Paley. Furthermore, other incarnations of him are killed and eaten many more times by the insane Simon. He is portrayed as the voice of calm in the group.
• Max Reisler — a computer hacker and game developer who is involved in a legal dispute with a company, Cyber Thrill, that stole his idea for a game. That company used the idea to make the varied time speeds in the rooms of the cube (a feature of the cube) and is a subsidiary of Izon. He dies of rapid aging while having sex with Julia.
• Julia Sewell — a defense lawyer representing Izon. Dies of rapid aging while having sex with Max.
• Mrs. Paley — a retired theoretical mathematician who previously worked for Izon. She is bound, gagged, interrogated and stabbed by Simon, dying in the spike trap. This is slightly ironic since he was trying to save her. She was difficult to work with because she was senile, although she still seems lucid about certain mathematical theories and concepts. It is revealed that she strongly objected to the hypercube being built, viewing it as immoral and inhuman.
• Colonel Thomas H. Maguire — a man who seems to have been intimately linked with the project. He references the first film by angrily crying that "The first one had numbers, dammit! At least give me something!" He also designed the numbering system of the first film. He is killed by the shifting of rooms one through another after handcuffing himself inside a room. Kate attempts to free him but he swallows the key, determined to die. In another reality, he dies from suicide since there was no intervention to prevent it.
• Dr. Rozenzweig — a Nobel Prize nominee, former colleague of Mrs. Paley and former employee of Izon, who was imprisoned within the cube for a while and was found by the group. He is the person who deduces when the Cube's unstable nature will destroy itself. Initially, he is presumed dead, but when he is discovered, he lurches forward, apparently in a death rattle, before dying. This is strange, as he appeared to have suffered from severe tissue degradation, consistent with that of multiple week-old corpses.

Origin Of The Cube

As characters argue about who could be responsible for building the Cube and what its purpose might be, Max states he knows who is responsible. He says a mythical hacker known as Alex Trusk is behind the project. His evidence is that the Cube bears all the hallmarks of a computer game and fits in with the way Trusk thinks. Other characters dispute this assertion (most notably Jerry, who believes Trusk is a myth).

The film ends with the revelation that the blind girl Sasha is in fact the real life Alex Trusk. 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 employers would not search for her there.

In the film's closing minutes, after revealing her true identity, Sasha is killed by Simon and her necklace taken by Kate. Upon retrieving the necklace, Kate 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.

Traps

All traps in the hypercube are a result of its unbalanced nature, and the fact that it is merely one room with doors leading to the same room in a different state — in four dimensions (length, width, depth, and another Fourth spatial dimension).

• Some rooms appear to shift gravity — this is merely the next room being rotated relative to the previous room (rotations occur in 90 degree increments so the doors always line up.)
• Some rooms move in time and/or space relative to other cubes. So time in one room may go faster relative to another, and observers in one room may even see occupants of another room age quickly.
• Rooms may move through each other:
  • The simplest observance of a room passing through another is moving walls, especially where the cube moving into the observer's room has faster time. The Colonel died when a room with faster time moved into the room he was in, aging part of his body much faster than the rest.
  • A room may pass through another in stages (or possibly, many rooms passing through another), as crystalline columns.
  • "The Expanding Tesseract" is one result of the hypercube's movement through itself — the edges of a small spinning tesseract which expands as it moves through the observed room temporally, until it fills the room, and then reduces again as it leaves. The Expanding Tesseract cuts like blades as anything which occupies the same space as the tesseract is subject to the properties of the tesseract "room(s)" — for instance, time in the tesseract room(s) may be relatively faster, resulting in a similar effect to the one which killed the Colonel.

See also

• Cube film series
• Simulated reality

External links

• Cube 2: Hypercube at IMDb
• Official site at Scifi.com