Saw 2 Review
Written by: Steve Lewis
Two days after the release of Saw 2, I finally got to view it myself. I liked the first film because it completely obliterated the competition within the rest of the modern horror movies of that year only because it was actually decent. Saw 2 is somewhat of a different story. It had a little bit of competition from earlier horror films in the summer.
Seven people wake up in a run down house to only discover they are part of a seriel killers gruesome game. The only way out is to follow his rules and not try to kill each other in the process. Detective Mason's son is one of those trapped inside. He has to track down the jigsaw seriel killer and free his son and others from a grisly end.
My feelings about this film because an elevator ride from being weak to be good back to be weak again. It felt it lacked energy, slow is a term that comes to mind. There seemed to be a lot of fluff between characters. We don't really know who is who but that's probably the point yet some of the characters were never explained in the end. The story became terrible predictable. In instances I was thinking to myself, it's right in front of you! Why don't you look right there! Yet, to no achievement the characters did not listen to my inner thoughts. Most horror movies make out the characters to be really idiotic, or slow. We never have smart victims who can work together to fix out a problem. I could say that their work related habits coinside with their abilities to work together.
Like I said in the paragraph above, the story became to predictable. We know one of these victims isn't infected with a deadly injested virus. How do we know this? Because they do not show symptons through the whole film. And the fact that the jigsaw killer is consistant, you would think that the Detectives would have played it smart and figured out that whatever he says, no matter how good it sounds, is not what it seems. So why do they listen to him? Because he has Mason's son? Possibly. The whole social aspect of the film is to teach you that life is precious. Ok, we saw that in the first film and it made a really strong point. This time, the point was not really strong and you want to know why? It was a revenge film. A revenge film against a Detective with the precious points being a bonus.
The traps were inventive and stayed true to the original but when people become desperate do we really take desperate measures in self conflicting pain? Do we crawl into furnaces for a syringe of unknown substances? Do we put our hands in a box with shart unescapable holes for a similar syring. I wouldn't. I really did like the pit full of dirty gritty syringes and that was probably the best part besides the unexpected twist which i'll cover in a bit.
The story is good. I give them credit with an incredible twist that had me fooled. I love how John, the jigsaw killer, has everything covered. Every creak and crany covered. But like I said, it really got weak at the end. The transition of the flame between seriel killers does not work for me. Scream is a perfect example. I don't care for them. I did however thought that going back to the room where the first film started was smart. Ending twice in the same room made you reflect on the original even more. One thing you can really tell different from both films is the directoring. James Wan directed the first film and his lead became more thrilling, gave more scares, and had us all in the edge of our seats. Darren Lynn Bousman did a fine job but he did not make it that suspensful as it could have been. We jump maybe once and in that scene we had no ground to jump, a fake scare so to say. Jump cuts became an abudance and a nuisance. Rapid, panic back and forth frames almost gave me an epilletic attack.
Although we did not get the high performanced over the top acting of Cary Elwes, we get the sloppy mess of thespism Donnie Wahlberg provides our eyes. His performance of Detective Mason just wasn't tough as he his character was suppose to be. John on the other hand was portreyed great by Tobin Bell. The tall and length Bell with his subtle voice really conveys the dying man as threatless but scary because you don't know what he is capable of. For the people in the room, mixed feelings I have and that's all I have to say.
Overall, the door can swing both ways on this one. You can either open up to the film and enjoy it or you can shut it out of your life and hold it under the table. In my opinion I enjoyed the first film. Though the first film had less gore, the whole film form was overall great. "Oh yes, there will be blood" and that's what the film seem to rely solely on. Now that we know who the killer is in the second one, we do have that question stuck in the back of our minds of who the killer is. Now that we know we are just lost in a game of kill offs and riddles. Saw delievers but does it in a sloppy manner.