Saw II is sloppy and completely devoid of logic.

Rating: 3/10 (6 March 2008)

Saw II is the sequel to the hit original. It is about the depressed Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) who is slowly losing his son Daniel (Erik Knudsen). Daniel has been getting into trouble lately, and after Eric yells at him he disappears. Soon after Eric and his SWAT team luckily pinpoint the whereabouts of the Jigsaw killer, locating him in an abandoned warehouse he has turned into his lair for his grisly doings. However Eric and his team cannot move Jigsaw (real name John Kramer) to prison since he is hooked up to medical equipment helping him to survive his cancer. Eric then learns that John has taken his son and 7 other criminals and locked them in a building with lots of hallways and secret passages. One of these people is Amanda (Shawnee Smith) who survived one of Jigsaw's past games. The eight people are told they have two hours to find the combination to a safe before a deadly nerve gas seeping through the air vents kills them. However this building is filled to the brim with booby traps and other traps that these people must put themselves through in order to keep moving along. Meanwhile Eric is told by John that all he has to do is talk to him for the 2 hours, and his son will turn up safely. But as time winds down Eric and all eight people locked away grow desperate, and begin resorting to extreme measures.
Saw II really didn't have big shoes to fill. The first movie wasn't really that great so this sequel could have easily surpassed it. But no this movie is far worse, and even more unrealistic and farfetch'd than the original. Saw II presents to us a storyline that is simply not possible unless Jigsaw has access to military nerve gas. The twists are all implausible and all in all pretty random at times. This movie raises the gore level by a long shot, with traps and games that are pretty hard to stomach at times. One trap a few people I know couldn't handle was when one character gets shoved into a pit full of pointy needles, and has to dig through them. These scenes are actually kind of creative while the rest of the movie is not.
The characters in this movie are secondary, or maybe third, to the blood and gore and twists. A few of the criminals in the building are less than paper thin in development, they're string hair thin. One woman who I can't remember her name is played by Beverley Mitchell (That's right from 7th Heaven), and she basically sits in a corner, cries, and has seizures...that's it. Also when we first get introduced to these eight people Amanda finds a key that says not to use it to open the only door out of the room. One guy takes it anyway and opens the door while looking through the peep hole, and guess what he gets shot through the eye and dies after the first 2 or 3 minutes. I thought to myself Jigsaw must be psychic if he knew someone would look through the peep hole while opening the door. Also wouldn't the character have seen the gun through the hole, I think that'd be a sign not to open it. One character Xavier (Franky G) is the most interesting criminal who turns out to be a vicious psychopath determined to do whatever he can to get out of the building before death.
As for John and Eric, their characters are a little better. Tobin Bell plays the part really well and gave me reason to continue on with the movie. A little of John's back story is given, which is quite interesting, but there's not nearly enough. The next few sequels explain more about him but I would rather the filmmakers have just wrapped it up with Saw II, at least the movie would be more watchable. But of course any series that makes big money equals a franchise. Now for the character of Eric Matthews who is a depressed work-aholic and alcoholic. Detective Matthews is well acted by Donnie Wahlberg, who surprisingly turns out far superior to Danny Glover in the first Saw. His character is developed but really turns out kind of one dimensional, he is basically just an angry self-centered jerk and that's about it.
The traps in Saw II are plenty and are sure to attract gore lovers. Some of it like I said is hard to watch since it's so utterly gruesome, but what do you expect it is named Saw II. While some of the traps are creative and actually have some kind of symbolism behind them, they are very farfetch'd and some are just put in to up the anty in the gore department. All the traps and twists are far too perfectly designed and would require everything to fall exactly into place the way Jigsaw planned it. But as I'm watching Saw II there is a scene where the criminals are trying to get through a steel door with an electronic password, and I'm wondering how Jigsaw gets his hands on all these materials. Everything is far too implausible and the traps contain far too much detail and perfection. For a man with cancer John simply would not be able to pull all this off. Every twist or plot shift works entirely to the effect of the movie, and it just doesn't work.
Saw II is full of blood and guts, but shorts out on the intriguing plot of the first. Everything that happens here is impossible and way devoid of logic and reality. However this sequel also seems sloppy since the filmmakers rushed to get it out to theaters only one year after the first Saw was released. They should have taken their time. I give Saw II a 1 out of 4.