SAW II (2005)

~Cast~

Donnie Wahlberg.....................Det. Eric Mason

Tobin Bell.................................Jigsaw

Shawnee Smith.........................Amanda

Frankie G..................................Xavier

Directed by.............Darren Lynn Bousman

My Rating:

                "Oh yes...there will be blood!"

    I made sure NOT to get myself pumped over this sequel due to the simple fact I knew there was no way in hell it could ever live up to the original SAW's jaw dropping ending. I was correct in that assumption and while this SAW fails in a lot of ways, it also succeeds in a lot of different ways too. My biggest problem with this movie is that there are WAY to many characters to deal with. I mean shit, there were times when I forgot that certain people even existed. We have a blond character whose only purpose is to sit there and scream when things happen...nothing more. We have another character who is just there to cause fights with another character and also, bitch. Another guy who is there to just fulfill their shocking twist quota, and so forth. Also, in the original SAW, the traps were elaborate and very hard to figure out. I sat there trying to figure out how I would be able to out of that situation due to it being so realistic. In this film, the traps are beyond obvious, shit, one character sticks his/her hand into this box to get a needle out, when that person can't get said hand out...instead of pushing up and releasing the hand...he/she sticks the other hand in the other hole and is now trapped with both! Real fucking smart! From another stand point, it was good to see more of Tobin Bell and also the gory deaths add to this movie big time.

    We don't really know how long it has been since the original film occurred but I am guessing it was a year. We start off with a person falling victim to one of Jigsaw's deadly traps. Unfortunately for him, he leads the cops right to his lair and they storm in and arrest him. Problem is, Ol' Jiggy has some tricks up his sleeve and informs the detective his son, along with 7 others, are trapped in a house and will die in less then 2 hours if he doesn't do what he says. Heir go the story continues with the same plot line only this time around, we don't really care about these people, we just hope the twist is good at the end.

    My guess to why I didn't love this is probably largely due to the fact that they just had what I like to call "KILL CHARACTERS" which is a character whose only purpose is to be killed and add to the death count. I hate these because it's a waste of fucking time to give them lines and take away from getting to know some of the other characters. This film is loaded with them, so much in fact, that I couldn't tell you a single one of there names if my life depended upon it unlike with Saw where I can STILL name them all, DR. GORDON, ADAM, ZEP, SING (etc) Oh yeah, one character I can name...OBI....and not because he was such a great character....nope. It's cause they make fun of the name. His scene was lame anyway, it takes 6 people like 10 minutes to figure out how the fuck to break a piece of glass? This is what happens when you don't have GOOD and TALENTED actors working, you have a bunch of people who DON'T KNOW HOW TO FUCKING REACT TO A SITUATION!!! Yeah, let us just stand there and point at the window. Not bash it open till it's to late. Come on, SAW made it a point to avoid these cliché's and stay away from the stupidity of characters which is what made it so scary and effective in the first place. Basically all we have here is a prehistoric version of CUBE! But it's not all bad, I didn't hate the movie, in fact I did like it. It does have an entertainment value to it, I found myself smiling to some of the extremely gory deaths. At the end of the day, unlike most horror films that spawn sequels, SAW II is a cut above the rest. It retains the most of the essentials that made the original so good.

    Donnie Wahlberg played Detective Eric Mason, basically a more complex version of Danny Glover's character in the first film. To my surprise, Wahlberg does great as a man who is trying to get his son back from the sadistic Jigsaw and has to play along with his games in order to achieve it. I felt his scenes with Tobin Bell were awesome and was actually what made the movie interesting. Speaking of Mr. Bell, Jigsaw has a HUGE role in this film. Unlike in the original but there were tons of reasons for that. The man rocks as John/Jigsaw and I just love how he enjoys fucking with people's heads. Hannibal Lector-esque performance but I feel that he was a lot scarier in the first film. Now, seeing as how they failed to really make any characters stand out, I have no idea who was who so I am going to go by the ones I do know. Sorry for the characters I am leaving out! We have Franky G playing Xavier who is in my opinion the biggest cliché in the entire film. Everything about his character is a cliché, in fact, I anticipated how it would all end with  his character before the change ever even occurred. Mr. G did do good at being the guy you just love to hate as my friend Laura put it. Shawnee Smith who is probably the most interesting returning character does a great job but the problem was the script made her character almost pointless. I was the most intrigued when I heard she was returning to reprise her role but I feel that it was almost a waste till the end of the film. For the most part, I feel her character was extremely underused and wasted, there was such potential that could have been seized with AMANDA but faltered under the lame script. But the scenes that Shawnee is aloud to do her thing, she shines and steals every cringing moan and groan out of your soul. Fucking syringes man! SHIT! Ok, back to review...

    To the directing of Darren Lynn Bousman is replacing James Wan in the director's chair but can he be up to par with Wan's balls to the wall directorial debut? Yes and no is my answer to that so let me explain. Darren does a good job at keeping SAW II's feel the same as the first, but he also throws in some new little surprises that kill a couple of scenes. One is the need to cause the audience to have a seizure by throwing 1000 shots at us at the end of a sequence to "heighten the intensity" Why directors now a days feel this works is beyond me, all it does is take me right out of the scene....ya know what it does? It makes me think they are forced to do that to avoid showing gore or violence due to censors. Cause why would ANYONE want to have one thousand different images bombarding there faces while trying to watch a movie? Is this the insurance to keep the ADD crowd in their seats? Whatever the means...people need to STOP FUCKING DOING IT!!! Outside of that, Darren does do a decent job, he may not be the best but he shows promise.

    To the gore, now people were saying this is gorier then the first but I am going to be honest...I really didn't find SAW II to be all that graphic. The opening sequence was cool and gory, but for the most the film has just the average amount of gore. This is still gory though, we get knife cutting under a eye, face plate closure, bullet through the eye, flame broiled junkie, sharp object through the foot, club with nails to the head, slit throat, skin slicing, corpses, excessive beating, brutal needles, and a couple other things. Nudity? guys get NOTHING yet again but the girls get a guy without his shirt and Franky G walking around showing off his arms. When will the guys get to win anything!? I demand there be some boobage in SAW III!

    So what else is there to say that hasn't already been said? How about the argument about how SAW II is ripping off CUBE? In a way, this is true, you basically have the same characters and plot turns as they do in CUBE and the concept is the same. Group of strangers trapped in a house/cube with no recollection of how they got their or why they are in there, trying to escape but must avoid deadly booby-traps.  Word was the original script for SAW II wasn't even made for SAW, it was another movie that Mr. Whannel picked up and tweaked...whatever the case...I love the concept of CUBE and while this does copy it a lot, its not to a point that I would throw a hissy fit over. I mean, come on...at least it's not a remake here folks!

    I say, if you never saw SAW, don't see this till you see that because the amazing ending will be ruined. For fans of SAW, you can rejoice to know that the franchise has NOT been butchered (yet) and that we all have a decent sequel here. Thing is, don't go into this expecting it to live up to the first film, while it does come close, it fails in comparison. SAW II's twist is good, but never shocked me due to the fact it is just like the first and it's almost impossible to spot but that is what I was expecting this time around. SAW II saws its way into the latest horror franchise and if this is any indication as to how the rest of the sequels will be, I say bring them on!

Special Guest Reviewers:

George Newman

"I have found a flaw in this franchise's killer. Yes, see, if it were true that Jigsaw actually had the disease he is said to have...he wouldn't be able to walk, make comprehensive sentences or even move muscles. And yet...Ol' John is able to outsmart tons of people, walk around and lift heavy paper cups! Maybe the writers should have researched this better...I really hope someone got fired for that!"

Jack Torrance

"You really have to much time on your hands Newman!"

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