Saw II
Featuring ex-New Kid on The Block Donnie Wahlberg, Saw II has received harsh critics from many who seem to know something about filmmaking. With, at the time of writing, a compiled score of 4.7/10 from the Know-it-Alls of Rotten Tomatoes, the movie seems to come just a bit short of it’s predecessor (7.2/10 on IMDb) , which maintains a score of 5.3/10 (7.5/10 on IMDb).
While the mediocre acting is obvious, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it ruins either the incredibly heavy and violent atmosphere of the movie, nor does it make it less realistic. Just like the first movie, you’re thrown in a world that scares you so much you enter a paranoid state in which you can’t help but fear what’s coming next. The concept is so solid and well executed that you can easily tolerate any mistakes from cheaper actors. The characters’ reactions when faced to deadly situations are quite believable nonetheless.
Pretending you’re intelligent is always fun. None can argue that fact. Saw II, based on the cold hearted logic of Jigsaw, allows you to try and figure out the puzzles yourself. When you think you have everything worked out, everything gets even more entangled in mystery as plot twists occur while the characters dive deeper in the serial killer’s mad plans.
A big plus of the first Saw movie was its ending. It was probably the most surprising ending I’ve seen for a movie in the past few years. While I guess the general concept of the movie is kind of easy to reproduce a second time, writer/director Darren Lynn Bousman and writer Leigh Whannell had the enormous task of surprising the public again. Without meaning to bring your expectations too high, I can say Saw II’s ending was as shocking as the first one. It contributes greatly into giving the feeling the whole movie was well executed.
In the end, Saw II is a lot like the first one. It’s resemblance to the original movie and the poor acting it features lowers the quality of the movie experience. Nonetheless, sometimes more of the same is better than trying to modify a working recipe. It’s definitely a must see.