Saw II

--Reviewed by Lindy Loo

Saw II has the stupidest tag-line ever. Just needed to get that outta my system. Thank you. Carry on.

Plotline: Jigsaw is back: A group of people wake up to find themselves trapped in a house that has been booby-trapped with potentially murderous horrors. They must figure out "the game" within two hours, otherwise a gas that is seeping into the house will complete its course and kill each of them. One of the "players" in the house is the detective's son, so the detective struggles to figure out the location as he dukes it out with Jigsaw in an attempt to save his son.

Scariness factor: It's only scary in terms of the whole time-running-out thing, where the main characters are in a race against the clock. So I guess you'd say perhaps a bit more suspenseful than scary?

Gross-Out Factor: I remember reading in Fangoria that the impetus behind this sequel was the fact that so many people who saw the first movie commented that they would like to see more of the grotesque events AS THEY UNFOLDED rather than just seeing the aftermath. (That's somehow disturbing to me, but that's besides the point.) So this movie was intended to take you inside the actual events, and it's been touted as terribly violent and gross. It was, but not so much as I'd expected. There were some nasty-ass scenes, but apparently I was expecting a lot lot worse.

Complaints: The whole plot-line of this movie stinks. They try to infuse a back-story about Jigsaw (the serial murderer) into it, and it's just lame. Silly and lame. The premise itself is pretty lousy as well--I mean, how many more "group-of-people-trapped-inside-a-house-trying-to-get-out" movies can they make, really? It also seemed like a pretty cheap rip-off of Seven at times (the whole symbolic retribution thing).

High Points: I really have had absolutely no interest in seeing this movie, especially since I found the original to be really lame (read more HERE). And, as usually happens when I go into a movie with this attitude, I wasn't as disgusted with it as I'd expected I'd be. It's by no means a *good* movie. But it was better than I'd expected. It kept my interest--I wanted to see the characters make it out alive. And it had a bit of a twist ending that was both pleasantly unexpected and yet mildly irritating.

Overall: This is probably a movie I'd never suggest someone go out of their way to see (I rarely recommend a sequel with high-marks anyways), but it wasn't quite so bad as I thought it would be. Take that as a compliment or a criticism, as I'm not sure which it's intended to be.

Grade: C/C-