better than the first, and that's saying a lot

Rating: 9/10 (7 October 2006)

if you liked saw, you will really like saw 2.it improves upon the original,surprisingly.there were more characters and the setting has changed slightly.whereas in the original,most of the story takes place in one room,there are now more rooms.the traps are more inventive than the original,there is more action and a group dynamic going on,setting the stage for a sort of mob mentality among some of the characters.this time we have a new group of characters.in this bunch there are some truly evil individuals,lumped in with some that are not.this is, good as it allows you to play some characters off each other. you still have your sympathetic characters to root for,and you also have the others that you can hope meet a grisly end. of course, the original villain is back and one other character from the original also returns.there is a higher budget this time around,hence a more polished look to the film, which works here.there is a twist ending, which was a bit of a surprise,setting up the soon to be released saw 3 nicely.and there is also a healthy dose of gore.what else can i say?saw 2 is highly recommended.if you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for? 8.5*