Inferior to the original but contains similar mind-blowing plot-twists

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2006)

Decent sequel to the brilliantly horrific "Saw". At the start of the film Jigsaw has eight would-be victims captured in a house together, with various riddles and traps to negotiate if they hope to escape. Whilst we see them all busy being tormented by Jigsaw's trickery, and one another, Jigsaw himself has been caught by the police, at his own hideout. Wahlberg plays Detective Matthews, who, with his police pals, is trying to extract from Jigsaw the whereabouts of the house to save his son, who is one of the eight trapped.
The movie clicks along alternating between these two broad aspects. The far better of these are the scenes outside of the house. As Jigsaw and Matthews progress their cat-and-mouse interaction we learn about Jigsaw's motivation and history, and Tobin Bell is near-perfect in this role, just utterly cold and creepy. Wahlberg's performance is only decent, certainly not great, but probably didn't need to be anything more given that this part of the movie is all about Jigsaw in any case.
The scenes in the house in the main feel like padding out time in anticipation of a big finish. We learn almost nothing about most of the captured, to the extent that most of them didn't really need to be given a name beyond "victim #3" or such. This pretty much applies to the first four characters killed.
The traps or their links to their intended victims mostly aren't as clever as those in the original, and this stuff has certainly lost some of its impact and almost become gimmicky in the sequel. Still this is a horror movie, and if you can't respond to what you'll see with "cooool" you're probably in the wrong theatre anyway. My stomach did turn in delight at the truly horrible scene involving the character Amanda (who returns from the original) in the "pit", about halfway through the movie. Worth making an effort to get through your munchies before it. Better still don't attempt to eat and watch - the opening scene of the film is also deliciously gruesome.
A few people die, a few don't, and the movie does build to a big finish and two big final twists. Not much can be said without giving it away, suffice to say the last five minutes were brilliant, and, like the first film leave you thinking "oh yeah.... so that's why that happened". Particularly the twist involving Wahlberg's son....wow. I was taken aback by the cleverness of the writers and the little hints along the way which didn't seem to mean anything at the time. The ending, and the performance of Bell, really did make this movie and for me saved it from being average to poor horror schmaltz.
You do need to see the original first to best appreciate this movie.
Frustrating to review really given that I can't say much about the best thing about the movie, the ending. The way the story has been left after this one, I can envisage Saw III being an absolute disaster. We shall see....