Saw II (2005)

Preceded by: Saw (2004)
Followed by: Saw III (2006)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Eric Matthews	Donnie Wahlberg
Amanda	Shawnee Smith
Jigsaw	Tobin Bell	½
Xavier	Franky G	½
Jonas	Glenn Plummer	½
Daniel	Erik Knudsen

Review

One of last year's most pleasant surprises – at least when it comes to the not too spoilt genre of horror – was the exhilaratingly ruthless jigsaw horror film Saw. Made by the highly talented newcomers James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the film had a rawness and an edge to it that I hadn't seen for a long time in horror filmmaking. Of course, the sequel was just around the corner; Saw II is a fuse between an original idea by writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman and Leigh Whannell's penning to make it work as a follow-up to the 2004 movie. The result is close to the original in spirit, and quite effective.

One of the greatest strengths of Saw, was the meticulously delicate presentation of the unique premise – placing Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell in their particular situations and letting them work out their predicament by themselves. It was with this scene (and others like it) that Saw really got to you – by depicting desperation in an overwhelmingly effective manner. Bousman's film lacks (or fast-forwards) this part, and suffers clearly from it. Like many sequels, it makes the mistake of skipping important build-up, thus failing to create its own identity and universe. Instead, Saw II becomes the very resembling, less gifted adopted child of the original.

With that said, Bousman demonstrates talent in his directing. After a somewhat messy and dramatically unimpressive start, the film picks up and has some well-assembled puzzles to offer as well as a few nice tricks. The script maintains quite intelligent throughout (though not as inventive as the original, of course) and the wrap-up is not at all disappointing. However, the characters are quite stereotypical and the plot defies logic a couple of times, but you'll have to make a very good argument to claim that this will go high up on the list of the least successful horror sequels.