An okay effort

Rating: 6/10 (20 March 2006)

I think the movie's okay but definitely not very interesting. While many people talked about the twist ending, I can't share as much enthusiasm as some feel. I was not too impressed with the twists, and even less so with the story, if there's one.
1) The people locked up in the room were totally 2-dimensional human-shaped cardboard. Besides furnishing us with the minimal info about the criminal background of the captives, nobody bothered to seriously treat them as "characters" instead of anonymous guinea pigs used to demonstrate how lethal each trap was. 99% of the lines they said was generic. And it's unfortunate that in the other space-time, the lines delivered by the detectives and the SWAT team captain were equally boring.
2) There's close to zero story in the movie. It's entirely based on the same premise of the original Saw. No new concepts were brought in. The sequel resembled more a long "deleted scene" from the original than a new movie.
3) The most surprising development that happened among the captives was the utterly unbelievable behaviors of the Latino guy. Oh well, who would have thought instead of trying to cooperate with all others on the same boat, the Latino guy would get so irritated by the sight of other life forms that he start slaughtering them one by one? What did he gain by shedding blood instead of politely asking the fellow captives to turn around and show him the number?
4) I didn't see the twist coming. It's unexpected, but that unfortunately does not mean it's appreciated. Yes, I didn't expect that the feed was prerecorded. Yes, I didn't expect that Amanda was an accomplice. But did the revelation help explain anything? No. And it's largely because there's no mystery to begin with. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see much difference whether Amanda was in on it or not. Likewise, what's the point of the whole charade of showing us the feed as if it's taken real-time? If Jigsaw just wanted to trick the detective, wasn't it enough to tell the detective that his son was kidnapped? Why bother with all the video? A good twist might also just re-orient the audience's perspectives and reformed our understanding of the story. In the case of Saw II, the "twists" neither added anything to the plot nor showed me a new way to look at what's on the plate. They felt unnecessary.
5) Why nowadays no horror movies could do without fast cuts? A small amount of fast cuts might attenuate the atmosphere, but an excessive amount of them inevitably makes matter worse. On the other hand, of course, a director using lots of fast cuts is a pretty good signal that he's lacking innovative ideas and skills to scare and engross the audience.
Having said all these, I should also add two more things.
First, I'm not against the Saw concepts. I liked the original Saw. It's suspenseful  I was literally on the edge of my seat most of the time I was watching it. Yea I knew the twist was not very credible but I liked how it resolved the whodunit puzzle in a surprising fashion. I applauded the movie makers making a very notable addition to the much-exploited subgenre already crowded by the likes of "Scream" and "Phone Booth." Second, despite my complaints, I still think Saw II made an okay entertainment. It'd not be memorable, but the occasional thrills would not make the 2-hour viewing time totally regrettable.