Wretched, but not in a good way

Rating: 3/10 (22 February 2006)

Shame, shame, shame. I actually enjoyed the first Saw quite a bit, and had hopes that this installment would meet or surpass its predecessor in quality. Poor guess on my part. I am a huge fan of horror movies...I have been watching them since I was a child. This was no horror movie. It was a poorly put-together "psychological" thriller with some violence in it. Part of what made the first movie good was the anonymous evil-doer. Having Jigsaw out and front all the time just didn't do it for me. The movie tries to justify his motivations, but his diatribes into the human condition fall short of convincing me. Fear of the unknown is one of the strongest types of fear there is, and having the killer spell out all his intentions is really kind of a let down. Also, the twist just left me snoring. And another thing (whine whine whine) was that I just could not suspend my disbelief. So there is this terminal cancer patient who can barely walk, yet is able to put many large sturdy devices together. Sure, he has help, but look at all the gear setup, and you'll see what I'm getting at. Also, Jigsaw must be psychic. His big ransom is the son of the detective. So he sets up all these traps in order to reach a desired outcome. What if people dropped dead from the nerve gas early? What if one of the criminals flipped out and killed the boy early? Sure, he might have profiled them, but I had some of these same issues with Mindhunters. The kicker is that I just don't care about any of the characters in this movie. They're all jerks, and it doesn't pain me to see them die. The end. Don't see this movie, it is a waste of time.