Twice The Saw!

Saw 2
(Originally written on 3/15/06)



I recently saw "Saw 2". I very much enjoyed the first "Saw", so when I heard there was a sequel, I was excited. Then I saw "Saw 2" and I what I saw, I wasn't too happy with.

I do wanna state that I did enjoy parts of the movie. The idea was pretty good: the infamous Jigsaw locks eight total strangers in a house and they have two hours to find an anti-dote to a killer nerve gas they're slowly inhaling. The problem was the people locked in the house were really annoying and they didn't delve into character development.

The film starts with some guy waking up sitting in a chair. He has a thing around his neck. This is very similar to the setup that Amanda from the first film found herself in, except instead of it being around her mouth, this thing is around his head. According to the helpful video tape, Jigsaw tells him that the key to the thing around his neck is wedged in his eye and he has to cut his eye out to get to it. Then a timer starts. The guy starts to cut into his eye, but he must be very fond of that eye. Maybe his great-grandmother gave him that eye on her death bed or something, because he doesn't do it. So the timer ends and the neck thing snaps, slamming a bunch of nails to his face. AND ROLL CREDITS!

After credits, we see Detective Donny Wahlberg looking depressed about something. We find out he has to get his kid Danny out of jail. We also learn from their short walk from the jail to the car that Danny's parent's are divorced and that Danny is in and out of jail a lot. Remember this, because the writers apparently forgot.

Cut to even later where Detective Wahlberg and his partner Detective Hot Chick arrive at the scene of the eye guy from the beginning. They realize it's the work of Jigsaw and get upset. Hot Chick tells Detective Wahlberg to "look closer". And the makers of "American Beauty" step in and sue their asses off. Well, actually, "Look Closer" is suppose to be a message from Jigsaw written on the ceiling.

Later that night, Detective Wahlberg is sleeping and as usual, it all comes to him in a dream. He realizes the metal the neck thing is made out of is a clue, so he wakes up and assembles a SWAT team. They arrive at the metal factory, I'm assuming, (Oh and we get a beautiful shot of the crew as the vans pull up in front of the camera. Hi, D.P! Hi, assistant director!) and since this is Jigsaw, the first three cops to step into the place fall for a trap that somehow bends their legs. Oddly enough, the rest of the crew have no problem getting through.

They find Jigsaw, a very old weak man, sitting at a table. They immediately cuff him and Jigsaw, real name John, tells Detective Wahlberg that he needs to stay there for a "problem". They soon realize what the problem is: John has 8 people trapped in a house! And guess what? One of them is Danny! WHA?!

We then go into the house and we sort of see the 8 people, but since this movie poorly develops their characters, we don't know their names or know much about them. There's Danny, huddled in the corner, confused. Then there's the Token Black Dude who seems like he's gonna take charge, a'la "Night of The Living Dead", but that don't last too long, if you don't mind me getting ahead of myself. There's Slutty Girl, and Annoying Chick. Oh and Psycho Boy. There's some dude in a Suit, a very creepy guy just chillin' off to the side, and finally a passed out chick in the middle of the floor.

Of course, everyone is confused, have no idea how they got there, etc. Psycho Boy immediately goes insane and demands to be let out. Soon, Passed Out Chick wakes up and we find it's Amanda, from the first film. She instantly realizes what's going on and hunts around the room. She finds the tape player and a key. Guy in the Suit grabs the key and puts it in the keyhole. This is a piss poor idea cause the key goes to a gun, which shoots him in the eye. Ow.

They listen to the tape, which explains the whole story about an antidote in the house, they got two hours, they'll die, yada yada yada. Soon enough, the door opens on its own and everyone goes exploring through the house. Psycho Boy finds a bat with a bunch of nails nailed into it, and he uses it to break down the door labeled "EXIT". This is pretty much pointless.

To sort of jump ahead here, otherwise we'd be here all night, the remaining people fight with each other like a typical episode of "Flavor of Love." They head to the basement which is where they find a message for Creepy Guy, which reveals he's the one who kidnapped everybody for John. Now, why he did this, how he did this, or why he's in the house with everyone is a big mystery cause we never find out. Instead, they find there's some antidote in a boiler, so Creepy Guy crawls in to get them. When he grabs them, he's lit on fire and the reason I call the one chick Annoying Girl is made clear here. While Creepy Guy is burning, Psycho Boy is fighting with him to get the antidote from him. During this ENTIRE SCENE, she is just screaming, "STOP IT!! STOP IT!! STOP IT!!" over and over. This went on for like 5 minutes, I swear. Finally, Creepy Guy dies and she can finally STOP IT!!!

The next torture room I couldn't watch cause it involved needles and needles freak the hell out of me. All I know is that a key was in a pit of needles and Amanda threw herself into it. After that, I was under my desk until the screams were over.

We get treated with scenes between John and Detective Wahlberg when we're not watching scenes of the housemates. John gives all kinds of hints about the safety of Danny, saying things like Danny will be "Safe". Remember that, wink wink. That and what happens towards the end are the only interesting scenes between him and John, so I'll just be focusing on the rest of the castaways until that scene at the end.

The cast of Real World from Hell are walking around the house, some are coughing. Annoying Chick falls and instantly dies. Oh boy. I am so broken hearted. I was just waiting for the next fight to happen to hear her deliver her Oscar worthy "STOP IT!!!" speech again.

Someone figures out to look behind a painting and they find a picture of Danny with Detective Wahlberg. The rest of the people look at Danny with contempt because, here's what they all have in common, the other 7 people were wrongfully arrested by Detective Wahlberg! ACK!! And the stupid part is when asked earlier, Danny says he never been to jail. WAIT!! What the hell did his Dad take him out of earlier?!? ARRGH! Anyway, Slutty Chick storms off and Amanda is the only one who realizes Danny had nothing to do with it and everyone shouldn't take it out on him. Well, after knowing what happens at the end, this part makes a bit more sense.

Slutty Chick stumbles into a room and finds a tape for her, I'm assuming. She just throws it to the side and finds a glass box with the antidote in it. She stupidly puts her hands inside it, which cause her wrists to bleed. I wonder what was on the tape, a way to do this without cutting yourself? Who knows.

Psycho Boy goes back to the original room and realizes what a clue John left meant. The combination to the safe in the room is in the back of their minds. He check's Dude In A Suit's neck and there's a number there. Then Token Black Dude comes in and Psycho Boy smashes his face in with the nail bat. He checks his neck and takes off. I'm gonna mention that to figure out the order of these numbers, they need to look over the rainbow.

So now Psycho Boy is on a war path to look at the backs of everybody's necks. He checks Slutty Chick's neck and lets her bleed to death. After checking Creepy Dude and Annoying Chick, he goes after Amanda and Danny. Then the longest chase scene in the history of the world takes place.

Back at John's, Detective Walhberg threatens John and makes him tell where Danny is. John gives in and says they must go alone. So Detective Walhberg activates the room they were in which turns out to be an elevator! WHA?! Anyway, they go driving off and they reference a movie I can't stand when John says, "It's the last house on the left!" HA!

Meanwhile, some tech people arrive to find out where the video feed is coming from. They figure it out and head over there. Amanda and Danny find a secret passage way and run into Colonel Mustard. Actually, that would've been cool. They just run deeper into the house, with Psycho Boy chasing them. Detective Walhberg runs in and the SWAT team also run in.

Everybody just runs everywhere for a good 10 minutes, with me screaming, "JESUS WOULD SOMEBODY RUN INTO SOMEBODY ALREADY!!" The SWAT team finds out that, you ready for this? The feed they been watching was pre-recorded! That means they've been dead for hours, or days possibly!!

Detective Walhberg FINALLY finds the secret passage. And Danny and Amanda finally end up somewhere. Where do they stupidly end up? At the bathroom that was the setting of the first movie. And in case anyone watching this needs some reminders, we get quick snippets of the first movie and see some dead bodies on the floor, and a very old looking foot. Ohh, is that what feet look like after being cut off for a long time?

Psycho Boy catches up to them and Amanda says he needs the number from the back of his neck. So he solves his little problem by cutting that part of his skin off. This isn't gratuitous at all. Then he goes after Amanda, but Danny suddenly springs to life and cuts his throat with the saw that Cary Elwes had in the first film. Psycho Boy drops dead and suddenly Detective Walhberg runs in. But the lights are all off suddenly. Then I remembered this all happened earlier and now Detective Walhberg is about 40 hours too late.

He thinks Danny is hiding in the bathtub, but somebody with a pig on their head, seriously, stabs him with a needle (ew), and he faints.

Ok, I know most of what I said so far was a spoiler, but this is really a spoiler, so you been warned.

First off, a safe opens up in John's room and Danny is inside it, alive and well, some 3000 miles away. There was no Danny. Secondly, Detective Wahlberg wakes up and he's chained to the bathroom wall now and there's a tape player. He presses play and he hears...Amanda's voice!

Ok, get a load of this shit. This ENTIRE TIME, she's been John's apprentice and learning the ways of not really killing people while teaching them a lesson. Then they plan THIS ENTIRE thing to get Detective Walhberg in this bathroom to teach him a lesson. Yeah. Oh and now that John is dead, Amanda is gonna take over in the teaching bad people lesson's department. She locks him in, stating GAME OVER! The end.

Ok...that's it? I mean...that's it? What about the over the rainbow thing? Was Amanda in any danger of dying from the poison? Why couldn't they just get Creepy Guy to kidnap Detective Walhberg and chain him in this room? How did Danny get in John's safe? And is there really a chance that Detective Walhberg won't be found by Detective Hot Chick? I'm sure they could easily find the house. Oh and what would've happened if Detective Walhberg just waited until the safe popped open? Just lull him into a false sense of security and kidnap him later? Oh, I got too many questions to ask here. I'll just wrap up.

I'm disappointed. I really liked the first "Saw" when I saw it, so much that I bought it immediately. It seemed like this film they were going more for a psychological thing then horror. Kinda like how "Silence of The Lambs" was a cool creepy movie, but "Hannibal" was just an all talky movie. But "Hannibal" did have Ray Liotta eating his brain. That was cool. Oh, right, this movie. This is a horrible sequel. If there's a Saw 3, I don't think it'd work with Amanda being the mastermind behind it all. It should just end it now, or else I'll cut myself. And oh yes...there will be blood.

-Jason

PS: At the time I wrote this, I wasn't aware there was gonna be a "Saw 3" or an entire stupid franschise.