qmtv I've seen the first Saw a few times, last time in 2016. First viewing I thought good. Last viewing in 2016, there were no surprises left, so the impression was a C rating for a B movie, maybe 5 stars. At least the story was decent and the acting was well done.Now Saw 2. This movie is garbage all the way around. Very little to recommend. First the story sucks. Very cliché. Our main character is a divorced, estranged father, cigarette smoking, possible alcoholic, corrupt cop that will plant evidence. Not a nice guy. The actor? Donnie Wahlberg. Now I've seen this guy do some decent acting before. But not here. The character is crap, and his actions and dialogue is trash. I can't blame him completely, but he took the job so he's not innocent. He is garbage here. His son, Erik Knudsen adds nothing to the mix. Nothing! His x partner, Dina Meyer, adds nothing, just garbage. The black cop with the bandanna on his head, crap. What's with the bandanna? Tobin Bell as Jigman, crap. He's got maybe 10 seconds of decent dialogue if that. Most of the crap that comes out of his mouth is boring, nonsense. I guess the filmmakers were trying to be a twisted gore fest here. It did not work.This opens with a killing. So, that was one thing the filmmakers did right. No brainer. Then we are introduced to the Donnie having a problem with his son. Let's all get excited for the introduction of these boring/cliché characters. Then the scene of the opening killing with more boring cliché characters, the cops. And then the scene with the SWAT team breaking in on the Jig Guy and finding out via videotape that Donnie's son and 7 other people are trapped and a gas has been released that will kill them in a few hours. Interesting idea. And the clock is ticking idea. All good. However, the execution sucks. The characters are garbage, and the dialogue is garbage. Help me. We are then introduced to the 8 people stuck in Jig's hell. Hispanic/Tough Guy/Drug Dealer, Black Gangster (where's the hip hop music?), Female Prostitute, Female Drug Addict (ended up conspiring with Jig Man, and then becoming the new Jig Woman), Businessman (no clue), Businesswoman (no clue), Donnie's son, Thief (we find out he helped Jig kidnap these people).The garbage that comes out of these kidnapped characters is unbearable. The acting sucked. The only one that seemed to show any type of terror was the businesswoman.We find out that all the kidnapped characters were framed by Donnie. They are disposed of one by one. And for no apparent reason the Drug Dealer starts killing people because he wants to find the number tattooed on the back of the neck. Why not just ask the person to turn around? The camera-work is garbage. Lots of quick edits, like we are going on a roller-coaster ride. The colors are garbage, some kind of green, brown lighting. Just garbage. I don't remember the music, so it wasn't good, but better yet I guess it wasn't horrible either. I did not buy the idea for why Jig decided to trap people into these death games. That he's sick and dying of cancer and people don't know what it is to live, and to deserve to live. And the idea that now, the drug addict is taking over for the same reason. The story is completely convoluted. I hate the dialogue. Lot's of F words, wise cracks, just plain garbage. When Donnie started tearing apart Jigs files, I was thinking maybe now we are going into comedy territory. What the hell was that? Then our screenwriter throws everything into the mix. Donnie starts beating the crap out of Jig. I mean, just add the loonie tunes soundtrack, at least it would be entertainment.This movie is a freaking mess. You can tell the filmmakers have some ideas and some skills, but don't know how to put it together. But dialogue like "Shut the F… Up!" – that's the best you could come up with? The twist end with the drug addict now taking over for Jig – nonsense. Remember the saying "A mind is a terrible thing to waste?" well this movie illustrates that a mind is a terrible thing. The filmmakers come up with a cliché/non original story plot dialogue with garbage actors and cinematography and editing to show us the payload. The payload? Disturbing gore.I hate this movie. I got it in a set of 7 Saw movies. I will rewatch Saw in fast forward so I can properly review it. And watch the other Saw movies, and god I hope they are better. Even if the stories are crap, if the cinematography/lighting/sets/editing/music is decent I can find some entertainment in it.Saw 2 – F, 1. Full on garbage. Quick summery – convoluted, cliché characters and dialogue, garbage kills/gore. Nothing of value.

michaehastings So much of the stuff that happens in this movie is boring and stupid, and none of it makes sense. The main game in SAW II is made up of eight people. Of these eight people, one is a child, two work for jigsaw, one is brain damaged, and one dies immediately so that there are stakes. It never occurred to jigsaw how unfair that is. They're job is to escape from a house full of nerve gas and solve little puzzles along the way, to get little bottles of antidote. All of the traps are stupid. At one point, a Russian man who works for jigsaw has to crawl into a metal box he has been told is called "The Furnace" and get two bottles of antidote. He crawls in and grabs one, then spends a while trying his hardest to grab the second one. Once he does, the door shut, and fire starts to come towards him. In order to open the door, he has to push a button that isn't in any way obscured, but he doesn't because he didn't see it. He never looked behind him. He, a man who works for jigsaw, heard that the box was called "the furnace" and was like "thats probably just a box, I should just go get the antidote, that's probably the trap." Every other trap is also bad. Overall, I would say you should only watch this if you plan on watching every SAW movie.

jtindahouse There are some films that you never forget seeing for the first time, and 'Saw 2' is one of those for me. Having already been blown away by the brilliant original, to have a sequel that was not only equally as good, but likely better, was incredible. Everything that was so good about 'Saw', the intelligence of the story, the brutality and the themes and messages, were all not only apparent in the sequel, they were amplified. The 'twist' was astonishing and made perfect sense. It made everything that had happened up until that point nothing short of mesmerising. There is no question that this is one of my favourite films of all time.At the time of watching the original 'Saw' it obviously seemed incredibly brutal in its nature. It wasn't until 'Saw 2' came out that we realised just how much leeway they still had to work with. Some of the traps in this film can make even the most hardened veterans of the genre squeamish (I know because I am one). The creativity involved never ceases to amaze me either. Some of the traps like the one where you reach through with your wrists only to be caught there are barely given even screen time, and yet other movies would kill to think up something so devilish and original.The best part about the film though does have to be the story. It's so much fun. The premise works on so many levels. Also if you ever actually stop and think about the message 'Jigsaw' is trying to get across, to appreciate life and live every moment as if it was your last, it's a truly enlightened one. I think this message actually gets lost to a lot of viewers because there is simply so much else going on in these films. This is a film I will never forget for its ingenuity and genius. If you've never had the pleasure of the seeing it, please do yourself a huge favour and do so. A masterpiece.

GL84 Attempting to track down the Jigsaw killer, a detective and his team's raid on a hideout reveals his son's involvement in a deadly game with other victims inside a house filled with traps and must rescue him before succumbing to the traps.This here ended up being quite the overall bland effort here. As with the rest of the franchise, the biggest problem here is with the feeling of his own brand of punishment being too far self-centered that there's little to gleam from the ethics and morality found here which tends to come away rather wholeheartedly. This one spends so much time trying to pontificate over doling out a sense of righteousness to his actions that there's just nothing that can be taken from who he's specifically targeting with this one seemingly bent on trying to bring about the fact that what's happening is of a great good to the individual. The gathered group is all supposedly tied together with the detective yet nothing here is really all that positive about why they're being targeted. Once it's discovered what the connection is, that makes his attempt at teaching them lessons seem even more foolhardy and suspect here with a simply lame reasoning to suspect that he's truly in trouble. Not only that, it's dropped way too late into the film anyway which makes this seem all the more confusing and pointless which renders this one irritatingly non-essential about that twist. Coupled with a series of utterly baffling character decisions that render this one rather non-descript and a bland first half that tends to leave all the kills here in the second half, there's a lot of flaws and problems here. While these here all hold this one down, there's very little here that's worthwhile. All of that positive force here comes from the traps on display, which are quite brutal in their execution if completely lacking in their connection to the types of traps usually featured in the series. There's some rather cruel and brutal traps here, from the crawl through the incinerator or the trap-door pit full of needles that's quite squirm-inducing. The other fine action in the last-half here as everyone turns on each other to get out of the house which gets interesting with some decent brawling and stalking that results in some enjoyable gore, but otherwise the flaws here are more impactful overall.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and children-in- jeopardy.