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Quint grabs SAW 2 and starts cutting away!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here, freshly back from SAW 2. I'm starting to feel like the Grinch. First I didn't like FEAST then I got to spew some venom at BLOODRAYNE and now I'm onto SAW 2, a film I expected to really like, but ended up really disliking. A lot.
SAW 2 is what everybody was trying to tell me SAW was. The ending is telegraphed from very early on (despite the fact that it makes little sense -without going into spoilers- since, if you think about it, it doesn't fit Jigsaw's character at all), the characters are cliches played by bad actors and the editing is all flashy with little to no substance.
I would argue any of those points with the original. Sure, Carey Elwes' American accent acting is sub-par, but he wasn't playing a staple of the horror genre. Danny Glover in the original went through some rough shit. I still think the scene where he gets his throat slashed is fantastic, made even more fantastic by the fact that he lives through it. And I still hold that the end to the original SAW was one of the only "earned" twists or revelations or whatever the hell you want to call a surprise on the end of the movie in the recent memory.
The atmosphere was tense, the creepiness was really creepy, the tension was palpable and the style unique. It's a flawed movie, but it succeeded where it needed to.
Everything I just said above... reverse it and apply it to SAW 2.
This time we have a cop who is drawn in to looking at the case of the Jigsaw killer by a more than friendly female cop. He's got an estranged teenage son who disappears. I wonder if that comes back?
The B story (which should be the A story) focuses on a bunch of people who wake up in a run down booby trapped house. Mr. Police Officer's son is one of the group, which includes the sassy Latina, the buff macho muscle head, Amanda from the first movie, the white chick who only stands around whining and occasionally spitting up blood, the calm and collected black dude with a shady past and a creepy looking dude who probably has more character than any of group. Too bad he's not around long.
The SAW-ish devices set up in the house aren't nearly as cringe worthy as what we see in the original. There is only one scene that comes close to that squirmy fear of the first film in this new one... I won't give it away, but it involves needles.
Tobin Bell as Jigsaw has a lot more screentime in the movie and he is extremely solid and the MVP of the film. Donnie Wahlberg has a good look and I like that they didn't cast some hunky TV star or something in this role, but he's given lots of terrible cliched shit to say, so he never really gets a chance to shine. Shawnee Smith returning as Amanda is okay, I guess, but she was so much better in her tiny part in the original.
In my mind, SAW 2 is exactly what people fear will happen with a sequel. Most of the time the sequels aren't awful, but just lose their way and forget what people liked about the original.
There are a couple of interesting bits and some familiar scenery that might make the fans smile, but I can't recommend paying to see this. It puts THE FOG to shame, but that isn't saying much.
-Quint
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+ Expand All
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decent flick i thought
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Oct 25, 2005 4:30:52 AM CDT
"and some familiar scenery that might make the fans smile"
by bill fairbanks
What the hell could that possibly be?
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Oh, wait. Sorry.
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Over-Rated
clap, clap, clap-clap-clap,
Over-Rated
clap, clap, clap-clap-clap -
...that's enough, don't need Saw 2. It's a great idea for a horror movie, drop some people in a "Mouse Trap game from Hell", but they really needed better direction and editing in that sucker. And Elwes? He just got funnier as the movie went along. I don't know what Glover was doing in it. I guess he got tired of waiting for Lethal Weapon 5. Anyway, long story short, Good idea, poorly executed.
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is it 'el-wes', 'eel-wes' or 'lewis'.
WHAT THE FUCK IS IT? -
When I tell them not to go see this and yet, they do. When they tell me afterwards how it was, they ALL say they wish they had seen something, ANYTHING else. When films spend most of their effort trying to out "whatever" they did in the previous chapter, it's almost ALWAYS the audience that loses. The first film was a no brainer the second they showed Tobin Bell in the hispital and said he was dying of cancer. Tobin never plays ANYTHING but creepy bad-guys, and so the whole point of the film was missing for me. I already KNEW the body just laying on the floor was Tobin. The only thing I thought I knew about the sequel, was I thought the son was in on the whole 'die in the house unless you figure out the clues' and was doing it just to fuck with his dad. I figured Tobin would die and the Officers son would carry on the creepyness in Tobin's name. Oh well (shrug), guess I was expecting too much.
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There, I said it. You can't please all of the people all of the time but Saw certainly pleased me. I liked the twists and turns within it (Do the two men know each other? Who is the man watching them on the camera? etc) and have to admit that I genuinely didn't see the ending coming (and this is from someone who spends most of his time attempting to guess the 'twist' in films). I like bleak films and the ending certainly satisifed me. That said, this really didn't need a sequel. It's a bit like SEVEN 2 where Kevin Spacey's son decides to follow his father's path and Morgan Freeman comes out of retirement to track him down. Sometimes I just wish Hollywood would realise they only tarnish the original's memory if they release substandard sequels.
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Oct 25, 2005 8:35:01 AM CDT
So If It Is The Reverse of SAW And I Didn't Like SAW Then Wi
by www.valiens.com
I'm one of the few...okay I'm the ONLY person on the planet that didn't think THE FOG was complete garbage. Garbage, to be sure, but not completely. So if SAW II blows that away then maybe it's worth checking out. Shit. I'm a plant aren't I? D'oh!
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I hated the original "Saw" (for the record, Quint, most of what people were "trying" to tell you is accurate, as a trained editor the overreliance on Avid gimmicks got annoying FAST), not least because I nailed who Jigsaw was the minute he popped up onscreen (I will admit the final twist was a surprise in the theater, but the more I think about it, the more stupid it becomes.) It sounds like this has ditched a LOT of the annoying bullshit and is just a straight-ahead "dodge-the-deathtrap" flick.
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this is so stupid this saw hype..it's not a suprise hit and it got terrible reviews and mediocre dvd sales.. in feburary! this sequel will be even worse..
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and so will this one. Both have impossible & improbable plots and horrible acting, I can't believe people like these movies.
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Over the years, I've sent a few emails to the various controllers of this website with what I consider to be quality scoops on, or reviews of, unreleased movies. Never once has a single scoop been posted.
Take for instance, the soundtrack to Harry Potter and the GOF, which was posted in it's entirity over at AOL Music this weekend. I think it's pretty significant to the denizens of this website. Has anyone mentioned it? No! Instead, Harry would rather post articles on the colour of Peter Jackson's stool. I think it's time to rename this website "Ain't It Kong News". -
I don't know what it was that I liked about the first Saw. I rarely like horror movies but this one looked interesting enough to see in the theaters. Saw was the first horror movie I think I have seen in theaters. I know I'll be disappointed in the second one but I will still be there opening weekend.
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I hated the first one. And I felt this one was a lot of fun. Both films have some cheesy lines and bad acting, but this one is far more enjoyable and well crafted, and if you love gore, delivers much more in that regard. Nothing special, but a good time for the audience it's meant for.
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to SE7EN? man, i've got to update my netflix queue. I love the idea of Morgan Freeman making MORE movies, that's great. You should really spoiler tag some of these posts because I had no idea Peter Jackson pooped in color. Is Cary Elwes a limey? I thought he was just bad in 'Saw', didn't think it had anything to do with a bad accent. Just puffy, hung over and not that good. Also, might have missed it, being out of country and all, but a pretty cool preview from deltoro (producing) on a stephen king short story called 'home delivery' is online. if you missed it, or i missed it here, sorry, but you can find it at partoscasero.com. kind of interesting take - looks like disney goes zombie. the background on the sk story is he took up a challenge to write about events surrounding romero's night of the living dead and was featured in a collection of short stories based on same by various authors. king's story is about an island off the coast of maine where a pregger lady recalls how the island went right in the sh*tter when the dead started walking around and how she's waiting for her hubby to "come back" cause he was lost at sea. good story.
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I can't wait to see the movies that Quint will write, I'm sure after all this lambasting, his movies movies WILL be fucking oscar worthy.
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Oct 25, 2005 2:21:29 PM CDT
Saying Saw was flawed is like saying Hitler was a curmudgeon.
by sydbarretsmydad
READ: SEVERELY UNDERSTATED....or....Spin.
Saw....sucked. In a way that it should be mocked thru midnight showings for decades to come, with people throwing Ham at the screen whenever Carey Ewlew or Danny Glover utter a word. -
Only this one will be low-budget.
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Oct 25, 2005 10:22:52 PM CDT
Why is this all we have in the way of scary movies this season?
by citizen arcane
It is Halloween afterall. Fuck The Fog remake and this overly stylized crap. Where's the blood and gore? Where's Freddy, Jason and Pinhead? The Halloween season is the one time when everyone isn't so Goddamned serious about everything and just want to have fun. So where's the fun? There's only a couple months before the monotomous sword and sorcery bullshit that comes around every Christmas, we got cheated on the chainsaw violence this year.
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And yet there will STILL be people lining up to praise and see 'Saw 3: Bat-Shit, Full Blown, Crazy Insane And Yet They STILL Let Me Operate Power Tools', or whatever the fuck they decide to call it. I'll be masterbating to 'My Little Pony' and sending rubber checks to Jerry Fallwell instead.
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You're welcome
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I was planning on seeing this halloween night, probably still will just because the crowd will be good, but damn you quint! not for writing a bad review or for disliking the movie, or even for being honest with us about it's crappiness, but damn you for being the barer of bad news. "do you know what you're scared when you're alone? ... i do.. (drool drool)" looks like donnie's not hangin so tuff these days eh? you see what I did there? BTW this is all just prep work for bringing back the new kids on the block, except the new name will be "old guys from the block, who've since had a couple kids or a seriously drug problem"
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I guess that would mean that I need to get up from my desk a little more often.
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