Saw II

"Can you imagine what it feels like to have someone sit you down and tell you that you're dying? The gravity of that, hmm? Then the clock's ticking for you. In a split second your awe is cracked open. You look at things things differently - smell things differently. You savor everything be it a glass of water or a walk in the park."
-Tobin Bell "Saw II" 2005

Released in 2005 under the direction of Darren Lynn Bousman and distributed by Lionsgate on a budget of $4 million, "Saw II" was a sequel that was literally given the green-light a week after the first one was released. Because of certain "priorities" by the original director (James Wan) returned only as an executive producer and Leigh Whannell returned as co-writer opposite of the new guy Darren Lynn Bousman (who would later direct "Repo! The Genetic Opera" and the 2010 remake of "Mother's Day"in case you're wondering). I previously described the first "Saw" film as being a clever yet uncharismatic in comparison to the David Fincher film "Se7en," which was a heavy inspiration for the film. This one was based off a short story Bousman wrote and tried to pass around Hollywood but was rejected until Lionsgate thought to themselves "Hey! The first one made money! Let's take this one guy's semi-original story and make it into a sequel for Saw so we can have an excuse to make money and to make this guy stop asking all the studios if he can make this into a movie! We R so smrt!!" So, is this the rightful follow-up to a rather tame mystery thriller that started the torture porn craze? Let the game begin so we can find out.

Plot: The Jigsaw Killer/ John Kramer (Tobin Bell) has finally been apprehended by the police after the death of a police informer, but Jigsaw is one step ahead of them as he reveals that he has already captured seven other people who were wrongly convicted by Officer Eric. The seven victims include drug dealer Xavier (Franky G), weirdo Obi (Tim Burd), Jigsaw survivor Amanda (Shawnee Smith), some prostitutes (I suppose), a guy named Gus, and Eric's son, Daniel (Erick Knudsun); these victims are trapped in a house that is being pumped with a deadly nerve gas that will kill them on the inside unless they can locate antidotes to survive until the doors open again. But with Jigsaw refusing to tell the police the location of the prisoners and time running out, will they survive long enough to get help? Answer: no and neither do we care.

Right away when this film opened up, I could tell something wasn't right. The original film was a film that stayed with two guys who exchanged information that explained the scenario to the audience, explaining a guy who goes around kidnapping people and forcing them to undergo horrible tests to show how people are "ungrateful to be alive." But it never showed what happened when someone failed the test unless it was the police looking over the crime scene and we, the audience, are given brief clips of what the victims went through and the rest was given up to us, the audience, to imagine what they went through. In this film, they clearly want to show off their budget when they show a character who we barely care about failing the test and this device which Jigsaw muses "think of it like a Venus Fly Trap" snaps close on his head, killing him. Was this to appease to the gore hounds who wanted more or to show off their budget because after this scene, they only briefly mention this scene again only to forget about it for the rest of the picture. While there is a sense of suspense as the film progresses, once you come to the end, you can't help but feel cheated once you realize the ending is a carbon copy of the original ending from the last film where they throw a curveball twist. Here, the "twist" just makes the cop look like a complete twit that makes feeling sorry for him pathetic as he could have avoided this if he wasn't being a complete asshole. It feels like a repeat of the last film except for the pacing, engaging mystery and interesting characters to back it up with.

Characters:

Tobin Bell: Prior to "Saw", Tobin Bell's acting I rated based on his amazingly eerie voice. This time, we finally get to see him physically act. While he's no Malcolm McDowell or Sir Lawrence Oliver, he really sells the show and you root for him more than our "protagonists." I am a little disappointed that he's barely in the film since he really could have carried it a lot better than Donnie Wahlberg and his backstory explaining his reasons for why he decided to do these horrible things. I wish the film would've focused him more though instead of just using him as a weak plot device. He's also no Hannibal Lector so his dialogue interaction feels rather one-sided coming close to just being preachy a certain points, a real-down side if you ask me.

Donnie Wahlberg: Am I supposed to like this guy when he's just a whiney and overly-angered and yet, he's supposed to be our main character that we're supposed to identify with him just because his son has been captured by Jigsaw. Yet, he is told by Jigsaw that if he just keeps talking to him, his son will be returned safely and does he? No, he just acts like an immature duckweed, drops some f-bombs, beats him up, destroys evidence that could potentially convict Jigsaw of his crimes. There is nothing about this guy I like and can root for, which is problematic since he is supposed to be our identifiable character for us to latch on to; but when your main character is a complete asshole and you find yourself latching onto the villain more, then you know you made the wrong move there filmmakers.

As for everyone else, I barely remember any of them nor did I even feel any connection for them. The police officers/detectives weren't interesting enough for me to remember their names and the people in the traps weren't nearly as interesting enough for me to care about them. The victims in the traps just argued, dropped swear words at each other and just acted like total pricks; a typical horror cliche` that has been overused way too much. We don't care about what happens to them and we don't care if they live or die when they're so unlikable.

Production: Clearly, these filmmakers just said to themselves "what was it people remembered the most about the last film? The traps! Of course!  But how far can we take it this time with the bigger budget we have?" I believe TV Guide.com movie critic Maitland McDonagh said it best, "Saw II" is a squirm movie, it's just one of those movies where you sit there and you squirm." Perfectly summed up right there. The original film had moments that could make you squirm but the reason being that they didn't show you that much graphic violence and your mind filled in the blanks how horrific it is. While I admire some of the things they do here, it makes me ponder if it's really necessary since I feel the image alone should be enough to get the point across but they dwell on it to the point of making you feel sick.

One big example involves a test where is told to dive into a pit of dirty hypodermic needles but he instead throws Amanda down there and for two minutes, we are forced to sit there and watch this poor woman have to dig through the dirty needles, with some hanging on her arms by the way (but to bring comfort to your defenseless minds; what the filmmakers did to pull this trick off was they took over 8,000 syringes, replaced the metallic tip with a plastic foam so they wouldn't harm the actress and the ones that stuck to the actress' arms; rubber syringes glued onto her arms to look like they where hanging out of her arms. As for when they remove the needles int he film? Prop arm that was designed to squirt out fake blood when the needles were pulled out and the edited in sound of the actress gasping aloud from pain. There you have it, hope that slightly calmed you down some.)

Bottom Line: I don't know what to say except "what went wrong?" It feels like the filmmakers just took"Saw" by title and threw in "Hostel" and "Oldboy" into the mix to try and be "cool" but the result is something that doesn't feel like a mystery film. This film clearly just took what people wanted more of from the last film: to see people dying in the traps. But it's hard to give a rat's ass when the characters are the most unlikable people for you to latch onto. The characters we are given are what I call "body bag characters" characters are that given so little development that clearly, the screenwriter/s purposefully wrote them like so just so they can be killed off. These excuses for ink on paper are prominent in horror film and this film is clearly no exception. Something that "Saw" had before but they developed them properly and when they died, there was meaning to them, not so much here. People have said this was the perfect follow-up for the film, I disagrees strongly, trying to continue the mystery only ruins the surprise for the folks who didn't see the last film. While it's production value is stronger this time around, boasting the Mudvayne song "Forget to Remember" and Marilyn Manson's "Irresponsible Hate Anthem" as well as more gore effects but gore cannot hide a piss-poor story with character you want to be seen get thrown in a blender and get bloodily ground up into a forgettable bloody soft drink.

If you like this sort of gore, then there's no harm in at least checking it out. If you're a casual movie-goer who read my last review and was interested in the sequels after my last review but not fond of torture; skip this crap and go watch a better David Fincher flick.

Final Rating: 2/5

Until the next time, I'll continue to stoke the fire for when we burn through celluloid.