My review of Saw II

I have been meaning to do a review for this one for a while. well, here it goes then.

Acting/Characters: This film set the standard for what the characters would be for the rest of the series: deranged jerks, the whiny girl who freaks out the whole game, the obsessed cop, the one who tries to be reasonable about the whole thing and so on and so forth. This film also started Jigsaw off as a major character. The problem with this movie (and indeed, the rest of the series) is that 99% of the characters in the film (like in most slashers) are one dimensional cardboard cutouts of humans that are only there to show one emotion throughout the whole movie until they die a grisly death. Boring. You know, Jigsaw is the only character in this one that I really actually like. despite the fact that he's a deranged sociopath (by the way, I was taking a sociology class and I asked the teacher what the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath is and she wasn't totally sure, but she said that to the best of her knowledge, a psychopath is a killer who has lost all touch with reality. Take the serial killer Ed Gein as an example. a sociopath is a killer who kills but can still fool people with a masquerade as a normal person. Hannibal Lecter for an example. Anyway, yeah random tangent) he is still the most likable character in the whole film for me. I didn't care about anyone else. 2/10

Plot: After watching the Saw franchise (minus the 7th one as of right now) I realized that the best traps in saw aren't the really elaborate and painful ones that will rip you into small pieces, rather the best Saw traps are the ones that you look at and you squirm in your seat because you can sort of imagine what that feels like. This movie is pretty much the last one that has traps like that. the ones in particular that I am thinking about are the needle pit and the razor box. I can kinda imagine what that feels like so those are the best traps. The sequel has wild traps tat will rip you to shreds if you fail and that is boring because you can't imagine what that feels like. Anyway, all that aside, the plot of this film is decently interesting. Nothing really good or well done but it is enough to keep you interested. the combination of that and some good traps leads me to give this section 5/10

Screenplay: I am tired of crappy screenplays. They are far too common in these kinds of films. I would have to think that professional screenwriters can do better than this but apparently not. .5/10

Likableness: It is an entertaining film. it has its boring parts and wild traps but it is overall not the worst of the sequels. It might even be the best sequel. I dunno. It was entertaining I suppose. 5/10

Final score: 12.5/40 31% (S)


TRIVIA TIME: 1. The advertising posters for the film had to be recalled on orders from the MPAA because the two severed fingers forming the "II" in the posters did not meet guidelines for film advertising. The new poster makes it more obscure. Also, posters had listed the film as being rated R when at the time the film still hadn't gone before the MPAA for a rating.

2. It took around 120,000 syringes to complete the needle pit sequence. It took four days for four people to replace all of the needle tips with fiber tips for the needle pit scene. Gelatin and a little water were added to the needle pit to make the syringes more movable and slippery. The creators and writers had originally thought of having a character be forced to dig through a bathtub full of the syringes, but decided it wouldn't be enough, instead wanting it on a grander scale. After thinking of the pit in the middle of the room, they intended for a character to land up to her neck in the needles as if it were a pool, but realized that it would be impossible for her to sink into such a pool, along with the fact that getting enough needles would have taken too long as it took the production team a long time to get as many needles as they had.

3. The hall Det. Matthews walks down to pick up his son at the police office was actually a dressing room for the crew.

4. Shawnee Smith was pregnant during filming, but kept it a secret from everyone, including the director and producers. Her daughter gave the secret away one day during lunch, but only to the director/writer Darren Lynn Bousman.

5. A few of the traps actually worked: the Venus fly trap could close, turning the key could shoot the gun, and the blades in the razor box could cut you if they were metal.