Phew - not really good

Rating: 4/10 (2 September 2007)

Uhm, well the headline of this comment says it all. Not a good movie. The beginning has another one of those wretched contraptions that made Saw 1 original/noteworthy - and then it all becomes a bit daft and even illogical.
It was made so blatantly obvious that the detective's son will be safe, just like it was made bleedingly obvious that it's not actually a live transmission from the house that the police are watching. In the beginning, I was watching it while also doing work on the computer and I still got that figured out about halfway through the film. Not good. Equally, it's just too predictable that Obi is not going to survive his very first challenge.
And then there's those leaps of (il)logic. Like - a single detective manages to get away with a terminal cancer patient whom he has just beaten up severely. Without being intercepted by one of the SWAT guys abundant inside the house. Without being followed by other police staff. Despite the fact that it probably did take some time to move said beaten-up cancer patient through the house and into the van. And no need to hassle with SWAT/police agents securing the outside of the building - conveniently, there were none (otherwise, they would have a) seen and intercepted him b) been at least informed by walkietalkie). Sure thing, we're only talking about a building in which THE prime suspect for the notorious "Jigsaw" cases is being held. Hey, he's terminal, he's got lots of monitors inside the building, no need to secure the outside of that building. D'oh. And no - nobody tries to take up the lead on where that detective goes, nobody so much as hints at a trap or a set-up and nobody is watching him particularly, although it could be anticipated that he might do something unwise as the guy's son is involved. Nope, the detective can just get the Jigsaw guy and leave without anybody caring much, whereas half of the police team stays in the house and the other half is tracking down the place from which the transmission is coming.
But no, that's not enough. As soon as the detective enters the house, it is abundantly clear that he will NOT get out again. Not in Saw 2, anyways. So, with about 15 minutes left before the end of the film, almost every scene is screaming "sequel!". Which is quite annoying.
But even that's not all from the repertoire of annoyance the writers could think of - they even put the Dark Side equivalent of "wise Yoda teaches you" in there. Amanda went through the jigsaw ordeal before, survived and apparently thought it was a good idea, so she's taking up what monsieur jigsaw started.
Who would have thought that there would be a way of wriggling out of the death of jigsaw (which was imminent) to produce a sequel. There's two alternatives: quickly introduce a scholar-of-jigsaw character _or_ make the sequel a prequel, i.e. make it about something that happened _before_ the "plot" of Saw 2. Amazingly, the Saw franchise did more or less both at once.
Have I talked about colour saturation filters and quick cuts (that make the film look like an episode from any given MTV series) yet? Well, there - I just did.
Now, why 4 stars... good question. I watched it on a rather unmotivated Sunday afternoon. It wasn't boring as such, which is a plus on Sunday afternoons. There were also some cringeworthy moments (needles). And, by giving me the urge to write this review, it actually gave me a reason to procrastinate work a little longer.