the saw comes around again

Rating: 5/10 (16 November 2005)

Jigsaw is still on his conquest to help change the human race; one person at a time. He believes that we all lack that instinctive sense of survival, testing us to see whether we will shed as much blood needed to keep our lives. In the opening we see his newest victim come to a bloody end, but he was part of a bigger attack; Agent Matthhews. Jigsaw has a new batch of victims; but instead of two its eight people this time, including Matthews son. They are trapped in a house and are breathing in a deadly nerve gas. Now they must all play their set games in order to receive an antidote or die a slow painful death.
The first saw movie had one of the most original concept ideas for a movie in a long time. But the overall film itself was a let down. Though it had a winning formula to it. For Saw II, they just took the same formula, tweaked it abit and gave us a rehash of the original. The only thing really different is the increase of people in jigsaw's game and a location change. Instead of elaborating on the concept they played it safe to give us what we have already seen before in the first one.
The acting is so flat, they don't evoke much sympathy for their characters. You don't care what really happens to them, no matter how brutal or bloody of an end it is. Darren Lynn Bousman's direction is a complete copy of James Wan's direction of Saw, instead of giving it his own distinct style, which would have separated it more from Saw. The mood is dark and dirty, but it doesn't have that claustrophobic feel to it, so its not that intense. This does have a lot more violence in it, but its not that disturbing; its to over the top so it lose that impact. The most disturbing scene, 'the needle in the haystack', was the one with the least amount of blood, there was hardly any blood, and it worked so much better for it.
Just like the first Saw, i was stumped by the twist. It does come right out and punches you in the face; but the twist here wasn't as hard hitting. You have some of the ending already pieced together by the end, but its still surprising, and it does once again leave it open for a third saw to come.
I give this film though the benefit of the doubt, its still one of the best ideas in a film, but the overall package just doesn't give it the impact and disturbing nature it was aiming for.