Meh.

Rating: 6/10 (29 January 2006)

A while back I found myself in English class trying to read some King when a nearby group's conversation gradually changed the topic to horror movies. That's when I first heard about Saw and how it's apparently one of the scariest and goriest movies ever made. I was skeptical and took my sweet time getting to it. After the initial watch I was a tad bit disappointed since Saw was not a horror movie. It had horror elements but it was supposed to be more of a mystery and on that ground it failed miserably. The ending was totally out of the left field and quite frankly I don't think it was even all that realistic.
I gave Saw some time and it grew on me a bit, not one of my favorites but I am now able to respect it for what it is. Saw II on the other hand was definitely a few steps down. Coming into the movie we know how Jigsaw sets up games of torture to test his victims. We know that there are going to be clever traps that involve people turning against each other and I guess we now know that there's going to be a dumb implausible twist at the end (though I admit it's a bit better in this one).
Saw II really does suffer from a "been there, done that" attitude. It also suffers from being too much like a horror movie. The first film at least tried to be smart; this sequel is just a brutal slasher flick. Hell they even have a stereotypical axe murdered running around at one point. With better writing this content would work but almost everything on display has been done before.
Maybe I'm being a bit too hard on this film. Most sequels do suffer from being too familiar. That's not to say it's all bad, in fact there are quite a few clever little scenes that impressed even me. The pool of syringes was memorable and Jigsaw was an interesting yet slightly familiar character (was it just he or did he give off a weird Hannibal Lecter vibe?) So as you can see, a lot of things have been changed for this sequel unfortunately these changes are not the ones that needed to be made. Rather than trying to expand the formula they should have made an effort to fix the things that were wrong with the first one. The camera work for instance. It tries to be "cool" by being wild and all over the place with nifty rock music blaring but it just seems silly to me, same with the car chases that were sped up, I actually laughed out loud during these scenes.
Another thing would be the acting. I know it's a horror movie and they never have good acting but it was just so bad. I not once felt for any of these characters, well except Jigsaw who was very well portrayed by Tobin Bell. Yet again, Jigsaw was the villain, we're not supposed to care about the villain.
I suppose my review may be a bit misleading considering how little good I have to say about the film. I'll admit it's not that bad when compared to other slasher flicks and there's probably enough to keep you entertained for it's running time, just don't expect it to blow your socks off.
My review from Frider Waves: http://friderwaves.com/index.php?page=saw2