Engaging, but lacking the mystery of the original

Rating: 5/10 (21 June 2017)

Disappointing sequel to the surprisingly quality first film. "Saw" had good plotting and a solid mystery, along with a lot of memorably grizzly horror. This sequel instead focuses primarily on the grizzly horror (the pit of dirty drug needles is by far the film's most memorable moment and unsettling) and really doesn't have much of a story outside of how-are-these-people-going-escape-Jigsaw's-deadly-traps? The film does offer one unexpected twist at the end, which led to several more sequels, but for the most part, this film set the formula for the many sequels, which was simply a new set of victims and anew set of overly elaborate traps. That was enough to hold my interest, but it's not really enough to call this a good horror film. Donnie Wahlberg, Beverley Mitchell, Shawnee Smith, Tobin Bell, Glenn Plummer, and Dina Meyer provide the solid cast.