Worthy follow-up

Rating: 6/10 (10 July 2007)

How do you follow up on a shocking success? Or should i say a successful shocker? Any which way, much of the allure of the first SAW-movie was it's rather original take on the splatter/serial-killer genre. And original movies seldom lend themselves to good sequels. So does this suck? No, actually it doesn't.
The film-makers decided to open this movie up a bit more. So there are fewer scenes from a confined space, more characters in the mix and more of a story to follow. That was a good choice, seeing another movie basically following people trapped in a room would have been tedious. It worked great in the first movie but we've seen it once and that's enough. Here instead it plays out as a mix between the first movie and a regular race-against-time thriller.
The biggest problem as i see it is the legacy from the first movie, which is of course a classic Achilles-heel for sequels. Here they have tried to remedy that by twisting the story one step further. Making the traps and tests more disgusting, the deaths more gruesome (and plentiful) and of course the characters more deranged. In a way it does work, this movie kept me on my toes for the duration. I didn't really feel there was a need for all that extra blood though, although some of the more disgusting traps were delightfully sick.
In the end this attempt at a follow-up works pretty well. It's not that far behind the original movie in entertainment-value. Sure, much of the originality that made the first movie great is gone. But instead they have tried to give some background to the characters and events, some additional story to the script and more interesting and plentiful characters. Also they manage to include a twist-ending that's not quite on par with the first movie, but still nice.
I rate this 6/10.