-
Welcome
to BookAndReader! We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!
Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.
Saw II
- Thread starter SFG75
- Start date
Bountyhunter
New Member
I saw it for the first time yesterday. It's good, I enjoyed it at least. Comparing it to the first one, well, there's an equally large twist in the end.
SFG75
Well-Known Member
Sequels are just never as good as the first, and many put a bad taste in your mouth. I understand why movie-makers want to ride the wave a second time to great profits and box-office payola, but often times, the magic just isn't there-unless it's a Godfather or Rocky sequel.steffee said:
lethaldose
New Member
This movie f****n rocks. That is all that can be said about it. The first one was good, but the story for this one is better and the ending is awesome.
StillILearn
New Member
By Peter Benchley?
Geenh
New Member
I reckon Saw was far better than Saw II. In Saw II, I sorta figured something was up with the girl being involved AGAIN anyway and I don't think the twist was as sudden and unexpected as in SAW.
Someone told me that they actually stood up in the theatre when the twist came in Saw because they were astounded. I don;t think it was THAT extremem but fantastic all the same.
Someone told me that they actually stood up in the theatre when the twist came in Saw because they were astounded. I don;t think it was THAT extremem but fantastic all the same.
JimMorrison
New Member
The only argument one can make in which this one is better than the first is the directing. The directing was more professional, looked better and simply more clean.
The story was def worse than the first.
Whats with gathering everyone together in that house? I called it about halfway through the movie. It was obvious that the kids son arrested all of those people. Thats so weak.
What happened to the notion of punishing people for not seizing the day or taking advantage and not taking for granted what they have in life?
Now the girl is gunna take over? Come on. A third Saw is being made but judging on the second, I only see it going downhill.
6/10
The story was def worse than the first.
Whats with gathering everyone together in that house? I called it about halfway through the movie. It was obvious that the kids son arrested all of those people. Thats so weak.
What happened to the notion of punishing people for not seizing the day or taking advantage and not taking for granted what they have in life?
Now the girl is gunna take over? Come on. A third Saw is being made but judging on the second, I only see it going downhill.
6/10
Fantasy Moon
kickbox
I am with the majority in feeling that the first film was better than this sequel. I suppose the success of the first film got to their heads and not as much time was taken to develop the story as well for the follow-up.
Stewart
Active Member
Feeling like a bit of a horror movie to liven up my Hallowe'en after a dull creative writing class, I turned to Saw II. I'd seen the first movie the previous year and thought that, while silly in parts, it did the job and provided a satisfying twist and gave up something I do enjoy in a horror movie: a bleak ending. Who wants happy people and a resolved situation at the end of a horror flick? It just woulnd't sit as uneasy on the mind after viewing. So, given the invention of the first, the question I, like others, had on my mind was how they were going to better the first. The answer, like most sequels, is that they couldn't.
The film begins with one of the notorious machinations of the previous film's Jigsaw killer. A man wakes up in a room and there's a mask around his neck resembling an iron maiden. After watching some video footage he learns that he has one hour to retrieve the key in order to save himself or else the mask will snap shut, its many nails piercing his brain. Needless to say he doesn't get the key and his death serves as the opener into the film's real story.
The premise is that a cop's name is written on the ceiling at the scene of the aforementioned sap's death and this neatly brings him into the case, despite the cop handling previous Jigsaw murders being one of those annoying whingers who go on about it being their case. The cop notices something which leads the investigation to an abandoned factory where the Jigsaw killer - he prefers to be called John - sits awaiting them.
From there we get a number of CCTV screens showing grainy footage of a group trapped in a room somewhere. One just happens to be the cop's son. Yes, you guessed it: Jigsaw wants to play a game with these people, but he also wants to play a game with the cop.
And the storyline progresses between the cops at the abandoned factory trying to work out where the people in the CCTV are, and the people themselves trying to work out how to escape from where they are. But, in the attempt to raise the game for the purposes of the sequel, the makers also reduce the power of the film so that it's only a bare shadow of the original.
Saw II features a boring bunch of stock characters. Enter the world weary cop, the other cop possessive of her case, the cryptic sociopath, the former junkie, the screaming girl who does little else, the token black, and more. There is nothing to these people. Tiny flashbacks occur for only a few of them leaving them with the slightest hint of character. But, for those without a past, they act as the main course in a feast of blood. Since we can't empathise with them, we can't feel sorrow at their deaths, making the film a series of gory encounters reduced to shallow thrills rather than playing on the viewer's fear.
The plotting, overall, was okay but far too calculated. In these sort of films you expect the killer to win the day as people blunder into their traps. But the games here are so elaborate and contrived, that you have to resort to that old notion of a willing suspension of belief. That some calculating killer could accurately predict the actions of so many variables needs such a suspension. As does the construction and accumulation of Jigsaw's torturous devices. (And his reasons for doing what he does, which isn't a patch on Raymond's in Spoorloos.)
As for the twist at the end, it was cheap. Part of it was easily guessed at due to the content of the initial tape recording played by the group in the CCTV footage. But the other half was such a getout clause on behalf of the writer that it brings the film from an almost The Usual Suspects level of trickery to something approaching slapstick. The literary equivalent would be waking up at the end and finding out it was all a dream.
Saw II, along with its predecessor and Hostel, is one of those films that would rather bring quick shocks to its viewers with oodlings of blood and gore, rather than provide any real horror. It's a farce and in no way memorable (as evidenced above by the fact I can't even remember the cop's name, despite him being the main character) and leaves me in doubt that it's a movie that should never have been made. It's more wish-I-hadn't-bothered than saw.
The film begins with one of the notorious machinations of the previous film's Jigsaw killer. A man wakes up in a room and there's a mask around his neck resembling an iron maiden. After watching some video footage he learns that he has one hour to retrieve the key in order to save himself or else the mask will snap shut, its many nails piercing his brain. Needless to say he doesn't get the key and his death serves as the opener into the film's real story.
The premise is that a cop's name is written on the ceiling at the scene of the aforementioned sap's death and this neatly brings him into the case, despite the cop handling previous Jigsaw murders being one of those annoying whingers who go on about it being their case. The cop notices something which leads the investigation to an abandoned factory where the Jigsaw killer - he prefers to be called John - sits awaiting them.
From there we get a number of CCTV screens showing grainy footage of a group trapped in a room somewhere. One just happens to be the cop's son. Yes, you guessed it: Jigsaw wants to play a game with these people, but he also wants to play a game with the cop.
And the storyline progresses between the cops at the abandoned factory trying to work out where the people in the CCTV are, and the people themselves trying to work out how to escape from where they are. But, in the attempt to raise the game for the purposes of the sequel, the makers also reduce the power of the film so that it's only a bare shadow of the original.
Saw II features a boring bunch of stock characters. Enter the world weary cop, the other cop possessive of her case, the cryptic sociopath, the former junkie, the screaming girl who does little else, the token black, and more. There is nothing to these people. Tiny flashbacks occur for only a few of them leaving them with the slightest hint of character. But, for those without a past, they act as the main course in a feast of blood. Since we can't empathise with them, we can't feel sorrow at their deaths, making the film a series of gory encounters reduced to shallow thrills rather than playing on the viewer's fear.
The plotting, overall, was okay but far too calculated. In these sort of films you expect the killer to win the day as people blunder into their traps. But the games here are so elaborate and contrived, that you have to resort to that old notion of a willing suspension of belief. That some calculating killer could accurately predict the actions of so many variables needs such a suspension. As does the construction and accumulation of Jigsaw's torturous devices. (And his reasons for doing what he does, which isn't a patch on Raymond's in Spoorloos.)
As for the twist at the end, it was cheap. Part of it was easily guessed at due to the content of the initial tape recording played by the group in the CCTV footage. But the other half was such a getout clause on behalf of the writer that it brings the film from an almost The Usual Suspects level of trickery to something approaching slapstick. The literary equivalent would be waking up at the end and finding out it was all a dream.
Saw II, along with its predecessor and Hostel, is one of those films that would rather bring quick shocks to its viewers with oodlings of blood and gore, rather than provide any real horror. It's a farce and in no way memorable (as evidenced above by the fact I can't even remember the cop's name, despite him being the main character) and leaves me in doubt that it's a movie that should never have been made. It's more wish-I-hadn't-bothered than saw.