Saw II

When the first Saw was released last year around this same time — Halloween — it was such a surprise hit that a sequel was almost immediately put into quick turnaround.

The director of the first film, James Wan, decided not to return for another round but the screenwriter, Leigh Whannell, was brought back to re-“Saw” an unrelated horror script by Darren Lynn Bousman. Bousman was brought on to direct the new film, and surrounded with Saw veterans (same flat, grainy, green-loving cinematographer, same Tasmanian Devil-styled editor), he did the new movie in a scant 25 days.

The first flick was built around solving a suspenseful mystery, as we watched two seemingly unconnected strangers try to puzzle their way out of a tight spot devised by a madman called Jigsaw. While I did have some problems with Saw — namely a tacked-on ending and some illogical plot holes — I did find it pretty much a white-knuckle ride all the way. During Saw II, I was actually bored most of the time.

Part of the problem is the lack of suspense; we now know who Jigsaw is, and while Tobin Bell is a terrific actor, seeing him handcuffed and being interrogated while his pale body wastes away with cancer before our very eyes is just not scary. As the cop who’s racing against time to save his son — one of eight people that Jigsaw has locked away in an undisclosed location — Donnie Wahlberg does a good job of seeming quite agitated, but he isn’t given much else to do. Too much of the film feels like an episode of NYPD Blue or The Shield, wherein an out-of-control cop yells at and beats on a shackled, mum suspect in an interrogation room.

The lack of suspense also extends to the unlikable paint-by-the-numbers group of victims. They spend so much time yelling at each other and backbiting, it’s a wonder they manage to find their way out of the first room and into the labyrinth of their windowless prison. As they wander the halls of the shuttered-up crack house, you just know they’re going to be picked off one-by-one in Ten Little Indians style.

In the first movie the victims of Jigsaw had the opportunity to save themselves, but in the sequel it’s just your standard assembly line of victims falling into traps that don’t actually offer an ingenious way out (with the exception of the opening sequence, before the credits begin to roll).

I’m not saying that Saw II should be a carbon copy of the first Saw (and I do give kudos to Whannel for managing to continue the story in a logical course of events), but once you’ve seen Jigsaw’s bag of tricks the shock and awe factor is gone.

With Wan missing, Saw II falls into the trap of being little more than a quickie sequel.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson