Okay, Saw 2 is my favorite entry in the series and I believe that it is also the best entry in the series. It's also one of my all-time favorite movies of any genre. Am I gonna be biased in this review? Oh, you better believe it. This movie has a 36% on RottenTomatoes and a 40% on Metacritic. That is absolutely uncalled for! This movie needs to be recognized for what it is: a terrific psychological thriller that leaves an impact on you like the first movie did, but in a totally different way. Let's get this show on the road.
Swiggity swy, what's that lodged behind your eye?
Plot time! The movie begins with a pointless victim being killed by a trap that was only put in to give the developers of the 2nd Saw video game (yes, those exist) an idea on how to start their game (pictured above). Btw, developers, starting your game off with a precision-based, timed minigame does not leave the player wanting more.
Okie dokie! Story elements! Jigsaw's base is raided by a SWAT team, led by none other than Donnie Wahlberg, and he is captured and interrogated on the whereabouts of a group of missing people. Donnie Wahlberg is pissed at Jigsaw because one of the missing people is Donny Wahl's son. Jigsaw (played by Tobin Bell) turns on a tv that shows a live camera feed from an abandoned house. Inside the house are the missing people (8 of them, to be exact), who are all taking part in a massive game made by Jigsaw. They all have a slow acting poison in their veins and scattered throughout the house are just enough antidotes for all of them. Only problem is, in order to get said antidotes, they need to go through a trap first. Jigsaw refuses to tell the police the location of the house until the end of the movie, when the plot twist comes. If you've seen the first Saw, you know that the twist ending was ridiculous and could never actually happen. In this one, the twist is perfectly executed and impossible to see coming on your first viewing.
Pictured: Dumb girl gets caught in a trap that is undoubtedly the easiest to figure out in the whole series.
This film isn't as well-acted as the first one, except for Tobin Bell, who always does a good job. Shawnee Smith is back as Amanda and she does a good job as well. Amanda is given a much larger role in this movie and it leads up to her becoming one of the main characters in the next film. The other actors are forgettable and their performances are too over the top to be worth anything in this movie.
The gore is stepped up a lot in this one. Since there are 8 victims, the producers had plenty of opportunities to create new and interesting traps. Someone gets shot through the eyeball by a magnum, someone gets burned to death, the stupid lady pictured above gets both her hands stuck in a razor trap and dies from blood loss (even though a monkey could figure out how to avoid getting stuck the way she did), and as always, there's always that one trap that makes the audience just cringe in disgust. In this movie, that trap is the needle pit.
Don't do drugs, kids.
Overall, I liked Saw 2 a lot more than the original. The plot was made more interesting by the fact that the main cop was more motivated to capture Jigsaw because his son was one of the people in the house. It didn't have the same suspense as the first one, but the upgraded gore and the entire situation of this movie made up for that. I also love the creativity of some of the traps. The magnum trap is still one of my favorites to this day. The twist ending was perfect and perfectly suited Jigsaw's personality. Saw 2 gets 9 used heroine needles out of a possible 10. I highly recommend you check it out. Especially for Shawnee Smith, who I must say is looking unbelievably attractive in this movie.
Marry me.
No comments:
Post a Comment