Saw II

UK Release Date: 28 October 2005

Certification: 18
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast: Tobin Bell, Franky G, Erik Knudsen, Dina Meyer, Glenn Plummer, Shawnee Smith, Donnie Wahlberg

Rating: 45%

Review:

The second instalment in the Saw franchise promises to be more gruesome and a lot bloodier than the first. With a larger budget, Saw II ups the stakes, the scale and improves upon the traps but forgets about the terror that made Saw great in the first place. It's by no means as good as the first but the film is still surprisingly entertaining. 

Detective Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) and his arc spanning the film's runtime are both interesting to watch on screen. As the film's main protagonist, the audience is meant to root Matthews but by the end of Saw II it's not as clear-cut. His moral ambiguity reveals conflicting emotions. Donnie Wahlberg pulls off the grizzled cop looking to save his son superbly. Tobin Bell expands upon the villainous presence of Jigsaw. He transforms the villain from a psychological terrorist to a sadistic serial killer with a menacing portrayal of a man's last remaining weeks of life. 

The problem comes with the characters taking part in Jigsaw's traps. They're all dull, uninteresting and poorly acted. It results in somewhat of a meaningless plot - I couldn't care less if any of the characters lived or not. 

Choosing to have the film take place in a house of escape rooms diverges it away enough from Saw, allowing the concepts, up to now, to remain fresh. The face trap is synonymous with the franchise and the pit of needles is a creative angle. The twist ending also follows up from the first, its elaborate and unexpected. 

With the duo of James Wan and Leigh Whannell split up as the film's writers, the script is a bit of a mess. It doesn't hold up anywhere near as well as the first film. Saw II also continues the trend of poor editing. It's absolutely appalling and is honestly impossible to watch during multiple periods of the runtime.