SAW II

By creating a legacy, by living a life worth remembering you become immortal
The year is 2005.  The killer known as Jigsaw is still on the loose and only Donnie Wahlberg can stop him.  Ah sequels.  I love them! You take what worked in the first one and do it again and more.  This movie gave us more victims, more traps, and %100 more Jigsaw.  Let me begin by saying I love Tobin Bell.  Sure I should have mentioned him in the last post (that man lays on a bloody floor like nobody's business) but this movie really let him shine.  I thought the voice on those tapes were doctored but he really sounds that creepy.  I want to get Mr. Bell to do a Dr. Seuss books on tape series.  Darren Lynn Bousman took up the director's chair for this one and stayed on for two more films.  Bousman was handpicked by the duo of Wan and Whannell to carry on their legacy.  Ha! Legacy plays a big part in these films, but I'll get to that. As I mentioned before the ingredient for a successful sequel is MORE MORE MORE and well, this film delivers.

                  

Let's get to it shall we?  The film opens up with an fellow who finds himself playing one of Jigsaw's games.  Get this- he is in a bear trap-bear trap.  Sure it's called a venus trap but look at it, it's got spikes and it closes.  Anyway, turns out the poor fellow loses and and the trap goes off.  That fellow was an informant for DONNIE WAHLGBERG, who will be referred to as Detective Matthews from here on out.  Matthews takes the case and using his boy band powers deduces where Jigsaw is.  The SWAT team saddles up and storms the hideout (not before that creepy puppet shows up and one or two traps messily take care of some of the team) and capture Jigsaw. Oh yeah that happens about 15 minutes into the movie. WTF happens now?  Jigsaw has set another game in motion and Detective Matthews is forced to play to save his missing son.  Turns out there is a game being played at another location involving Detective Matthew's son and several others trapped in a booby-trapped house.  Jigsaw tells the detective he must talk to him to save his son.  The people in the house play out their game and Jigsaw and the detective watch them on video as Matthews gets more and more desperate.  You will never guess who is in the house with Matthew's son.  Aw hell, did you guess Amanda?  Yup, someone STILL doesn't appreciate her life.  You'd think she'd learn right?  Amanda leads the other victims through the house trying to help them through the traps.  The video shows the victims begin to dwindle from the poison coursing through their veins (or the violent traps they fall into) as does the clock while Jigsaw forces Detective Matthews to carry on their conversation.  Once again, everything converges on Stygian Street.
I really dug this movie.  The first movie has you wondering who the hell is Jigsaw and this film sits you down and has a conversation with him.  As I said before Tobin Bell is the man.  He steals the show just by asking for a glass of water.  We get more of a back story to Jigsaw, real name John Kramer.  You can almost see where the guy is coming from.  Wouldn't you go on a rampage if the guy from The Princess Bride told you you were going to die?  John tried to kill himself after his diagnosis.  After crawling out of the wreckage of his car he realizes what the human body is capable of and decides to put it to the test. Detective Matthews is also a pretty interesting character.  I started feeling sorry for him but as the game continued I saw him as more of a thug with a badge.  His final interrogation with Jigsaw confirms it.  You begin to see what Jigsaw means about people learning their lessons and appreciating what they have.  The movie is split into conversation and bloody, bloody violence in the house.  The test subjects, as Jigsaw calls them are somewhat recognizable.  Like Frankie G and the chick from 7th Heaven.

This part of the movie was a way to show off some serious traps.  The rule of the sequel guarantees that.  The traps are bigger and meaner this go round.  On top of the nerve gas, and violent death lurking around every corner, the subjects begin to turn on one another with knives, hacksaws, and the baseball bat from Silent Hill.  When fans discuss Saw II they talk of how awesome Tobin Bell was, how riveted they were by Marky-Mark's brother's performance, how pretty Shawnee Smith is, how badass the sound track is, how they never saw the twist ending coming, and oh yeah,
THE NEEDLE PIT SCENE!!!!

   Like I said the traps are really, really mean this time around.  The gun on the door was pretty shocking, the glass box wrist trap was pretty mean, but the needle pit?  I think out of all of the Saw films this is the trap that disturbed me the most.  Can you imagine?  And Shawnee Smith practically swims in those things to find an antidote.  GAAAAAAH! As I mentioned before, the twist ending(s) of this movie were pretty great.  Jigsaw told Detective Matthews EXACTLY how to save his son.  But best of all we find out that Amanda      didn't make the same mistake twice did she?
Director Bousman maintained the style of the first film, but toned down the quick cuts and the 360 spins.  I really appreciated that.  I really believe he hit his stride in Saw III but this was a pretty awesome debut.  The story for Saw II was actually an unrelated script Bousman had been trying to get made, and when Saw broke box office records, the suits at Lions Gate got Leigh Whannell to help Bousman rewrite the script to make it fit (Saw II is like the Die Hard With A Vengeance of the horror genre).  I appreciated the restraint that he showed, he really allowed the tension to build and also to showcase those awesome traps.

WHAT I LIKE

I like that Jigsaw is in a wheelchair and is wearing a bathrobe for the whole film. AND IS STILL SCARY. 

I like Shawnee Smith's haircut. 

I like how by the end of the movie police procedure is beat up, kidnapped, and left for dead in a van. 

I like that the car chase in this one is just as awful as the first film. 

I like that if you miss the first ninety minutes of any Saw film, you can catch the last minute that recaps EVERYTHING that happened. 

I like that Jigsaw has his own Bat-cave. 

I like the house the game takes place in is the last house on the left. 

This movie is a great example of what a sequel should be. This movie ran with the mythology of the first film and even added some interesting twists. It's rare in a franchise to see the number of villains INCREASE, but that's one of the awesome things about the Saw movies is that Jigsaw is a believer in the work he does.  His work will continue with or without him.  As will this blog....