Saw II

With James Wan working on a different project, Leigh Whannell, writer and star of last year's twisted horror hit Saw turned to Darren Lynn Bousman to direct and co-write the sequel with him. Saw II is the result, a more generic horror movie that is no better than the first one, but it does have some very nice ideas again, better gore and killer traps. I'm going to go kind of spoiler crazy on it, though I'm not going to reveal the big twist at the end so don't worry.

What I remember from Saw last year was that the acting sucked, specially towards the end, but I revisited the movie before watching the sequel and I have to say that it didn't bother me at all. Now in Saw II the acting is better, that's for sure, but there's a characters that's really stupid and almost ruined the movie for me, the Franky G character. He goes crazy on the others and nobody thinks of stopping him.
But other than that, Donnie Wahlberg is really good as Det. Eric Mason, who's leading the investigation after the Jigsaw asks for him, and then points him to monitors showing a big old house full of traps where 8 people are trapped at the mercy of his games.
Dina Meyer reprises her role as Det. Kerry (something) from the first one. She more to do here, though still not that important, but she is good too. And then the victims, Shawnee Smith is also back as Amanda, the only Jigsaw survivor, and she's ok in the acting department, as are the kids, Erik Knudsen as Mason's son Daniel, and 7th Heaven's Beverley Mitchell who plays another young victim. The aforementioned Franky G is also there in the house, and then there's Tim Burd as Obi, Emmanuelle Vaugier as Addison, and Glenn Plummer as Jonas the black guy, but none of them three have much to do.
The best performance is that of Tobin Bell who plays John the Jigsaw Killer just like in the first movie. He has great exchanges with Donnie Wahlberg for most of the movie and it's very atmospheric and it works great.

I mentioned the traps, the one used in the opening scene is amazingly cool, and there's another one later involving needles that is really sick. I also liked how they tied the story with the first one at the end, it was pretty good, though they did leave something unexplained but it worked anyway. It was great that one of the saws from the first movie finally appeared here at the end, and it seems that someone sharpened it because I don't think that after sitting there all that time it could cause a would like the one in the movie.

What I really didn't like was how the big twist ending left the door open for a third movie. I mean, it was pretty obvious that they had no intention to finish the franchise here, but the way they do it, while unexpected, was a terrible cheat.

And I also didn't like how stupid the movie is compared to the first one. Saw was perfectly calculated, every detail of it. The only way out they had was if the Adam character had found the key right at the beginning when he woke up in the bathtub, but that was very difficult to happen. Now in Saw II, right after they listen to the first recorded message I knew right away that they had to check the back of their heads, maybe there was something on the neck, maybe if they cut some hair, but no, they totally forget about until the end when only one of the remembers.

And what also happened in the first one is that all of Jigsaw's traps and devices were used. Here they never get to open the first safe, and he tells them to check the house for more antidotes and they don't do it. And there's most stuff that had potential but is not used. It's like they had all these ideas, and lots of characters to use them on, but then the movie would've been too long or complicated so they decided to not use that stuff.

It's crazy that I didn't like so much stuff, but I'm still recommending the movie. It even sounds like I hated it but I didn't, I quite liked it despite all its flaws. There's lots of gore, excellent traps, and the same idea than before, that the Jigsaw Killer is not actually a killer, but someone who wants to make these people value life, and that's what makes Saw II good and worth watching, and if they keep it insane like this, it'll be the same for the third one.