Jigsaw is back and so is the nastiness in a not very good sequel

Rating: 3/10 (12 November 2005)

Jigsaw, the crazed killer from the first Saw is back. Here he's locked up a group of people and told them they have two hours to get out of the house before the nerve gas he's pumping in will kill them. Meanwhile a cop has captured the killer and learns that one of the people trapped in the house is his son.
As illogical and mean the first film was it had a certain something that made you want to watch to the end. You had real characters and real twists that kept you glued to your seat. Unfortunately here only the meanness and illogic remains.
I need more than just the prospect of nasty things happening to make a movie. Saw 2's horror does not arise from anything other than waiting to see what the next gory event is going to be. Its a step up and over from the slasher films of the early 1980's where you were more interested in how people died than who the characters were. Here the interest is how are the elaborate traps going to kill the next victim. Yes it creates tension, but on some level it becomes nothing more than catalog of mans cruelty to man.
Saw 2 also has other problems that I can not get past (Spoilers a head) how does Jigsaw have the time to build these huge death traps? This is especially curious owing to his condition. I had the same question about the first film but the plot moved along at such a clip I didn't have time to think. Here there is time and it made me crazy. How does Jigsaw know so much? He knows so much about everyone and he has access to files and info that he would have no reasonable way of getting. Again how does he have the time and strength to gather all of this material? I won't go into the behavior of the cops, the means of his rounding up all of the victims. Obviously you can't think about these things or the film will collapse.
I can't really recommend this film, since while it is well made, its little more than a collection of nasty deaths and cruel acts with the pretense of being something else.