9.24.2012

#183 -- Saw II (2005)

Rating: 4 / 5
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

I guess this is another series I'm going to be watching out of order. I've already seen the first one, though so it's okay. I'll just have to refrain from describing every little detail about the movies, since this is my first time reviewing one. I'm assuming that, if you're reading this, you've already seen the first one. So I'm not going into full detail about what's going on; you should already know that.

Jigsaw returns, but this time he's a little bit different. In the first movie, we only got to see the real man for a short time. Here, we get the full story of why he's a complete nutjob. Before he started his "work," he found out that he had cancer, and he didn't have very long to live. This was very depressing for him, naturally, so he decided to end it quickly rather than wait for the cancer to end it for him. He drove his car off a cliff, but miraculously, he survived. From this, he brought with him a new appreciation for life. He saw that, for some reason, he wasn't supposed to die there that night. That got him to thinking about all the people in the world who did not appreciate their lives. His belief was, "those who do not appreciate life, do not deserve life." He wanted to help them learn to appreciate what they have.

Shawnee Smith returns as Amanda, the only person to survive Jigsaw's shenanigans in the first movie. But he wasn't satisfied with how she continued to live her life afterwards, so he brought her back. This time, there was a group of people trapped in a house together. The doors would open onto freedom in three hours. The problem was that the house was leaking a deadly gas that would kill them in two hours. All they had to do was find the antidotes, and they had to do some pretty gruesome things to do so. One antidote was in the back of a furnace, but once the guy grabbed it, the door shut and the fires started. There was no way for him to get out, or get the antidote to anyone else. What was the point of that? One antidote was in a big box hanging from the ceiling. The box had little holes for someone's arms; but the holes were lined with knives. One was at the bottom of a pit of needles. One was in a safe, and the combinations were written on the backs of everyone's necks; one guy had to cut the skin out of his neck to figure out his number, because he was an ass and no one wanted to tell him. Along with Amanda, Xavier (the ass), theres Laura, Addison, Obi, Jonas, and Daniel. Jigsaw said they had to figure out what all of them had in common, in order to get themselves out of the house alive. That something was Daniel's father, a police officer who falsified evidence to arrest all of the others.

Meanwhile, outside of the booby trapped house, Daniel's father Eric was desperate to find his son. He played a more critical role in Jigsaw's scheme than he was aware of, though. There was a video feed of the prisoners; the police officers were watching every mode they made, and Detective Eric was growing very anxious. But, the feed wasn't live, it turned out, and while they were watching all these horrible things happen, Daniel was safe and sound. The point was the get Eric to that house, so that he could become the next subject. There was a nice twist at the end, which is the main reason this is one of my favorites in the series. I wasn't expecting it all (maybe some of you will...), so It was actually surprising to me.

This one also stars Donny Wahlberg and Beverley Mitchell (Lucy, from 7th Heaven!). I watched the first of this series not long after it came out. I didn't like it very much, because it left me confused. Once I figured out what the hell was going on in that one, it got me more interested in the series, so I started watching the others. I actually still haven't seen them all, but I know they're pretty great. This didn't quite deliver on the shocks or gross-outs or scares. The best gadget in the entire movie was the first one, so it was pretty disappointing in that department. But it was still a good story and a great movie.

Some more screen caps, 'cause I can



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