2020 Vanessa Júpiter's Hooptober - Movie #3

I remember watching Cube²: Hypercube as a teenager and quite liking it.

A month ago I decided to revisit the entire franchise to see what I'd think of it as an adult.

Then I watched it once again in order to make a video about it.

And when I saw that it was one of the Extra Movies for Hooptober Se7en, I was thrilled to have a reason to watch the movie for a third time in less than a month.

Last time I rated the movie two stars... because it's bad.

But I'm tired of pretending that I'm above enjoying bad movies.

I love Cube²: Hypercube.

My favorite type of so-bad-it's-good media is the one that makes me feel like I'm losing grasp of reality, like I'm staring into the abyss, then time itself merges into a blob of existential nonsense.

I had to pull up some screenshots of the movie and finding a frame that looks halfway decent is a challenge. The composition of most shots is shockingly ugly. The editing is such a disaster as well, which just adds to the experience.

The movie consists mostly of characters introducing themselves, running into weird traps, re-introducing themselves once they meet a new character, montages of walking, introducing themselves once again because of the character with memory loss... And shockingly, for a movie with so little plot, it still manages to have glaring holes in it.

Amazing.

No matter how many times I watch Cube²: Hypercube, the comedic tone still catches me off-guard. The characters make so many jokes, which is such an odd choice. I wonder if the movie was even supposed to have any tension.

By the time the one hour mark hits, I'm simultaneously confused and impressed. Thankfully the truly bewildering stuff were saved for the last half hour, with one of the most absurd and unnecessary sex scenes in cinema history and... cannibalism... for some reason.

Let me go down a quick list of weird things about Cube²: Hypercube that I love:

- The fact that the title has a ² in it. So cheesy.
- Mrs. Pailey is the best character in the entire Cube franchise. She's so wholesome.
- Kari Matchett brings me so much joy as Kate. She manages to fail on the intonation of 90% of her lines, which weren't good to begin with. (A great example is when Julia asks "Were we kidnapped?" and Kate responds very threateningly "You know what... That's a really good question!" So many weird choices in just two lines of dialogue!)
- The sexual tension between Jerry and Simon.
- There's something referred to as a "perfect quadrangular oscillation". I love that. I don't know why. Probably I've seen this movie so many times that I feel like it's my friend and that "perfect quadrangular oscillation" is an inside joke between the two of us because it's such a bizarre thing for anyone to say.

I've spent more time watching and/or thinking about this movie over the last month than probably anyone ever should. It still makes no sense. It was all worth it.
Life is meaningless anyway.