Twists and turns - expect the unexpected!

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2006)

I can't make a decent review of the movie, so I'll just share some of my thoughts on it. Here goes nothing: First of all, this was NOT a ripoff of CUBE. True enough, both movies involve a theme of strangers being trapped in a mystery house full of traps and dangers; however, the similarities end there. Okay? Now shut up about it, if that's what has been holding you back from seeing it.
By far and wide, there were definitely some scenes in this movie which were hard to watch, but they worked in the aspect of the movie. It's a perfect example of gore being used to further the horror of a situation, rather than exploiting it for that purpose. Needless (now I shudder at how similar that word is to another one...) to say, this movie was less a splatter film and more of a psychological mystery - JUST like the original SAW.
One slight problem I had with the movie was a fault entirely of my own. For quite some time now, I knew something about how this movie was going to end. No-no, don't worry, I'm not going to give anything away; but basically I'll use this analogy: Let's say someone in 1983 who never saw the original two STAR WARS movies hears about RETURN OF THE JEDI coming, and that there's something about Han Solo having to get rescued. They get curious, and they watch the first movie. Then, shortly before RETURN comes out, they see EMPIRE, but already they know that Han Solo gets into some kind of trouble. Carbonite, et al, happens, and it's just not as effective, but it was still a good movie.
That's what my situation was with the SAW movies; I watched the first one, loved it, and as I waited and waited for II to come out on DVD in its uncut edition (I'm a dork, I know), I keep hearing things about the third movie which began to make me think. I prettymuch had the end to SAW II figured out for a while, and the whole time I was watching it, I was hoping to be corrected. Unfortunately, I was right...but you see, there are TWO twists to this movie, which both happen back-to-back and within one another. I wasn't sure what the *other* twist was, at first, but reading some of the spoiler-heavy posts on the message board after watching the movie, I suddenly got slapped in the face with that other twist...and needless to say, I spent a good few minutes laughing at the shock of it. So, I got my awesome twist ending after all...even if I knew one aspect of it already.
I did give this movie a 9 out of 10 star rating, and that was because of a few problems I had with it. One of them was my above "spoiled foreshadowing," but that hardly is a reason to dislike the movie. My problems were mostly in a couple of the characters. Here you have such complicated and profound characters like Jigsaw, and this movie does a really good job at exploring them; and then there's Xavier and Detective Eric Matthews. Some of the decisions they make in the movie work only to further the plot, and are either very unprecedented or disagreeable. Something Xavier does at one point is so left-field and horrendous, and it really bugs me that he did it; but then again, it helped the plot along, and I guess that makes up for it. On a further note about him, I liked Franky G in THE Italian JOB, and I thought he was a very talented actor there; seeing him in this role made me feel like it was a bit of a waste for him. Oh well, he's getting more famous now, anyway.
Oh, speaking of actors, I really enjoyed Shawnee Smith. She was basically the star of the movie, to me; her character of Amanda, from her reaction to waking up in the house and screaming her horror, to...other, later points (gah, I swear that pun was unintended!), was executed with real conviction and talent. I, for one, am a fan of this actress now. And Tobin Bell...he has set the high bar on what a villain is like, and I, for one, thought he did splendidly as the awesomely complicated Jigsaw.
So in retrospect, this movie was full of thrills, twists, and tons of scares. It was every bit as good as the original, and even a bit better at times. All in all, SAW II was a perfect example of a psychological horror movie done right, and an excellent follow-up to its groundbreaking predecessor.
A-