Well, Danjal's comment in my previous post came a bit too late. Scott went to go see Saw 2 last night. It wasn't horrible...but that doesn't exactly mean it was all that and a bag of chips either. There were a few holes and I haven't yet decided whether linking to the first movie as much as they did was cheesy or not. I think at some points they overplayed the gore a bit and I know that these characters aren't supposed to be the brightest people, but fuck...watching the (for lack of a better, or real word for that matter) retardity of some of these people was just frustrating sometimes...
One BIG thing that kind of kept me from enjoying it was that (and I hope I'm not ruining this for anyone) it started out with a scene involving the lack of an eye...and having to dig into the socket to find a key to unlock the deadly device...you know how it goes...but yeah, for those of you who know me, you know that I have a serious aversion to anything involving eyes. It all started back when I was just a young lad. I was watching Evil Dead 2 and I had no idea who Bruce Campbell or Sam Raimi were and I didn't know what Evil Dead was or whatever, although I was captivated by it all. However, if you are familiar with that film you know about the infamous 'fly-ball' sequence wherein Henrietta's eyeball flys out of the socket and into a screaming girl's mouth. THAT GROSSED ME THE FUCK OUT and has haunted me ever since. I even used to have day nightmares (daymares?) about it when I was in class...to this day I can't deal with eyes popping out of the socket, being poked out, or whatever...it will make me want to vomit. I can handle looking at some of the nastiest shite, but if it involves an eye, I have to look away. So getting back to Saw: this scene seriously made me nauseous and I felt sick throughout the rest of the film. All the other gore was tolerable. But the opening scene just made me uncomfortable and, as I said, prevented me from fully enjoying the film.
Now on to the good things about the movie. The story was actually very well written (but some of the dialogue was cheesy and the actors were rather lame). But there's another amazing performance by Tobin Bell and it was cool to see Shawnee Smith back in this one. There were some great twists and great clues scattered about that told you everything...if you were paying attention. Although somehow the execution of it all was a bit lacking. The first Saw was so intense and brilliant and I think that James Wan will go on to have an incredible career (I'm really looking forward to his next film, Silence). But even when they do all the great reveals, it was like 'Whoa...ok, that's cool'...whereas in the first one, it was like 'Whoa, holy fucking shit'...but yeah, while cool in a lot of aspects, it just wasn't as intense as the first. They even used one of the best parts of the first film's score, but it just didn't have the same (or a better) effect. If you go see Saw 2, watch the first Saw before going and you'll see that the 'answer' is right in front of you the whole time. It does leave potential for a Saw 3 though...lets just hope there are more saws in the next one (or at least more of a focus on a saw) to justify calling the movie 'Saw'...it's like how The Devil's Rejects wasn't House of 1,000 Corpses 2...or House of 1,002 Corpses...or the House of a Shitload of Corpses...
One BIG thing that kind of kept me from enjoying it was that (and I hope I'm not ruining this for anyone) it started out with a scene involving the lack of an eye...and having to dig into the socket to find a key to unlock the deadly device...you know how it goes...but yeah, for those of you who know me, you know that I have a serious aversion to anything involving eyes. It all started back when I was just a young lad. I was watching Evil Dead 2 and I had no idea who Bruce Campbell or Sam Raimi were and I didn't know what Evil Dead was or whatever, although I was captivated by it all. However, if you are familiar with that film you know about the infamous 'fly-ball' sequence wherein Henrietta's eyeball flys out of the socket and into a screaming girl's mouth. THAT GROSSED ME THE FUCK OUT and has haunted me ever since. I even used to have day nightmares (daymares?) about it when I was in class...to this day I can't deal with eyes popping out of the socket, being poked out, or whatever...it will make me want to vomit. I can handle looking at some of the nastiest shite, but if it involves an eye, I have to look away. So getting back to Saw: this scene seriously made me nauseous and I felt sick throughout the rest of the film. All the other gore was tolerable. But the opening scene just made me uncomfortable and, as I said, prevented me from fully enjoying the film.
Now on to the good things about the movie. The story was actually very well written (but some of the dialogue was cheesy and the actors were rather lame). But there's another amazing performance by Tobin Bell and it was cool to see Shawnee Smith back in this one. There were some great twists and great clues scattered about that told you everything...if you were paying attention. Although somehow the execution of it all was a bit lacking. The first Saw was so intense and brilliant and I think that James Wan will go on to have an incredible career (I'm really looking forward to his next film, Silence). But even when they do all the great reveals, it was like 'Whoa...ok, that's cool'...whereas in the first one, it was like 'Whoa, holy fucking shit'...but yeah, while cool in a lot of aspects, it just wasn't as intense as the first. They even used one of the best parts of the first film's score, but it just didn't have the same (or a better) effect. If you go see Saw 2, watch the first Saw before going and you'll see that the 'answer' is right in front of you the whole time. It does leave potential for a Saw 3 though...lets just hope there are more saws in the next one (or at least more of a focus on a saw) to justify calling the movie 'Saw'...it's like how The Devil's Rejects wasn't House of 1,000 Corpses 2...or House of 1,002 Corpses...or the House of a Shitload of Corpses...