Saw II

If you have not yet seen the film, there may be some spoilers in here for you!  
If need be I poke your eyes out for you!  

Saw II, is apparently the second film in a set that is said will hold many other sequels… um yay.

At this point you are all thinking “Where is your Serenity review??!” well in answer to all your questioning. I am holding it off so I that I can write a darn good review on it! So don’t ‘spec to be seeing it until my review of Broken Flowers is on the table.

So, directed by some guy… Darren Lynn Bousman- who didn’t actually direct the original, strange huh?- Starring Donnie Wahlberg (Eric Mason), Shawnee Smith (Amanda),and I’m going to end it at Tobin Bell (Jigsaw), this mainly because all the other characters/actors were not really present for a particular reason. They were just there to die.

Saw II follows Eric Mason (Wahlberg) and his messed up life to the point to where his son is kidnapped to join in the games of Jigsaw; as he traps at least 10 (I think) people in a house. Informing them that they have been injected with a lethal nerve gas and will die eventually without help of the vaccines strewn throughout the house, but with the drive to survive in each person, one by one they die, either by the hand of another or through their own personal gain. The story is nothing special, though guessing the twist (because you know there had to be one) is always a bit of fun, though I am not the biggest fan of where they went with the twist.
Expect as much gore and more than the original! Fans of twisted violence, this may be your film… fans of good acting, story etc, perhaps not your cup of tea.

In comment to the actors... they were not too good at acting, I do not think I can actually comment… the plethora of characters were really nothing special, sort of what I expected in a way. Apart from Donnie Wahlberg- although even he just played angry cop- and Tobin Bell I can’t say that I actually ‘liked’ any of the actors.

The screenplay was to be expected from a gore induced flick, with some bad predictable lines, only a few shone through with the reflection that someone was thinking when they wrote it. The story is almost non-existent; just a chance to revolt people.

In not being a fan of most horror films I’m going to say that I enjoyed Saw II but only as a piece of entertainment, nothing more. I loved being able to cringe at points, for a movie to obviously get me so engrossed to cringe I applaud it. But the film itself is nothing ground breaking, it had similar strong points to Saw; being a FEW snappy lines, some strong main characters, though only two that I could stand. Whereas Saw had Danny Glover, I cannot say there was anyone present of his stature…

As for bad points- I must say that the original Saw contained far better actors, aside from having Cary Elwes as one of the main characters. Whereas in Saw II they felt the need to introduce about ten people who were all going to die anyway, so I didn’t care much for them. Another problem I found with the film was its twist, I didn’t like how they left it so open for a sequel I fear that its followers may become more than disastrous. Although the pointers to the end were pretty easy to guess, ‘cept the last one, which I thought was clever.
The sequel was also not as cryptic as the original, something I sorely missed.

Overall it was an ok film. It was only really good for the gore and wince inducing moments. There is not much strong acting to be found here, so Saw II is the movie you may rent for a night of scary movies, not as profound as Saw was, but at the same standard.

Cptalbertwesker Rating – 6 1/2/10
It was fun to see such a film at the cinema, although the gang of chavs terrorising our cinema was not the nicest experience in the world…