Review & Possible continuity issues

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2006)

I noticed two possible continuity issues, but I'd like some clarification from other viewers; I wasn't entirely engaged in watching the movie and may have overlooked something.
1) After Obi's tape informs him that "(inside the case) there are two antidotes", one guy says "we don't even know what's in those syringes" and a minute later Obi says "i guess i'm going in there to get those needles" - up to that point (as far as i recall) they had not been informed of how they were expected to administer the antidote or the form it would take; it could have been tablets, vials of liquid, etc.
2) When Donnie Wahlberg enters the house and is in the room where everybody had previously awoken, there is a syringe filled with antidote to the right of the safe, on the floor. How did it get there? If it was just laying on the floor throughout, why didn't anybody take it? As for the movie as a whole, I wasn't particularly impressed. The version of the DVD I got spelled "Donnie Wahlberg" as "Donnie Wahlburg" on the cover. I was further disheartened when I saw the spike mask used to kill off the guy in the opening scene. It was well done, but except for some minor details it's the same kind of contraption that the junkie girl survived in the first movie.
Some of the dialog was pathetic and occasionally contradictory. The black guy tells the hispanic drug dealer, after some discussion about the viability of an antidote "you've been in the joint, you've talked to the wardens that run the chambers: you know there ain't no antidote for this (elided)". These are two petty criminals, not death row inhabitants, and this is after the allusion that the gas involved is sarin, not cyanide. It's not meaningful dialog, it's an attempt to divulge the history of the characters in the cheapest possible way, with a minimum of effort. Later, a conversation transpires between the same two characters in which the black guy says (paraphrase) "we can treat each other like we're in the yard, or we can find out who is doing this to us". His next comment is "I know people like you, you're always trying to find an enemy".
I enjoyed the first movie a lot, but I don't think that the sequel really has much going for it other than the fact that you get to see a bunch of morons killed in compelling circumstances. I'm no snob: it gets 5 stars for that, which is half-way there, but I feel like this movie was riding on the novelty of the concept behind it's predecessor, without really adding anything enduring. The stylistic appeals-to-authority used to hurriedly execute the final scene without the audience feeling cheated (same theme music as Saw, same quickly-cut flashbacks, same set, same catchphrase, etc) indicate that this movie isn't something that can stand by itself - it's a footnote.