Saw 2 (2005) Review

The next film in my prep for Spiral is Saw 2 and I have now watched it and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees a detective attempt to rescue 8 people who have been placed into a game by the nefarious Jigsaw. 

Main Character 

Before starring in what feels like 100 series of Blue Bloods Donnie Wahlberg plays the lead here and the best thing I will say is that he is pretty functional in his role. He plays the detective well and feels like a natural fit with the franchise as a whole. But the issue is that there is nothing special or unique about him and he is just really generic, I just wasn't particularly interested or captivated by anything to do with him at all. 

Supporting Characters

Shawnee Smith is back as Amanda and she is given more to do with her role here and she is similar to Wahlberg in that she is very functional in her role and this is a very physical role that she has to achieve. It's just she isn't that good in making you care and really she could have been a completely new character and I feel like the film wouldn't have been much different. We actually get to see more of Tobin Bell as Jigsaw and I just feel like he has such an interesting and cool voice that it makes Jigsaw pretty maniacal. It is just I feel a little bit that this film shows a bit too much of Jigsaw and where the first film built this aura around him it just basically tells you everything here. But the cast of the people captured by Jigsaw are so all over the place and bad that you won't care about a single person and want to see them die pretty horrible deaths. 

Story 

There is no doubt that this story ramps it up from the first film and raises the stakes in a pretty large way. There are also some pretty cool unique death traps here that are way more creative from the first film and in typical Saw fashion there is a twist and it works pretty well even though I feel like it will never have the impact that the first film have. But the film has an issue with its characters and not making you care about a single human being presented to you which for me is pretty important even in a 90 minute horror film. 

Script

The script just isn't very good. The dialogue is poor and the characters are poorly written which just makes this film feel a bit cold and pointless. Yes I said there is a twist and it is executed pretty well but for me it doesn't save the mess of a script that is put on screen here. 

Style 

As mentioned above, the film is definitely bigger in scale and for the most part it does work as it allows some more creative deathtraps that may have been off the table before and that works here. But even though the film isn't that long, it feels long and I think that is down to just the larger amount of characters that have to have backstories that just aren't explained well enough and slow the whole thing down. 

Overall 

Overall, Saw 2 is a below average film and for me is a step down from the original. Yes it has a bigger budget and more well known actors but it falls flat and loses the charm that the first one had and I would saw it is one that can be skipped. 

Rating - 4/10