In much the same way that The Blair Witch Project capitalised on its unexpected success by immediately rushing out a sequel, fans of the diabolical ‘Jigsaw’ had to wait for less than a year for the follow-up to Saw. In light of this it shouldn’t be too surprising that Saw II offers up very little in the way of fresh ideas, but should we really have expected anything else? After all, the strength of the original was in watching helpless victims being psychologically and physically dissected in fiendishly cruel ways. Is this enough to carry a sequel though?
I think it is, just about. Saw II is a little more polished than the first, with the same frantic death scenes but this time layered between more a deliberate approach to telling the story. It helps that we actually get to meet Jigsaw this time (Tobin Bell stealing the show), and though the joust between him and Eric Matthews eventually becomes a little tiresome it does add an interesting dimension to the scenario and is the only really interesting point of reference. The attempts to inject Jigsaw’s motivation with a sense of morality are a little heavy-handed at times, but his rationale of human beings living in a cruel world where violence can (and should) be used for redemption as well as to inflict suffering is something to think about whilst people are having bits hacked out of them. As with the original, we have to wait until the dying seconds to find out the full import of his quasi-philosophy but it does flourish into a cruelly ironic finale which makes up for the boredom that occasionally creeps in during the rest of the film.
This time the scares are played out on a bigger stage, with several human lab-rats provided for our titillation in a sufficiently moody house whose resemblance to the Resident Evil games is, I suspect, more contrived than coincidental. Because of the duel-layered plot the goings on in the house often seem to slip away from the attention of the audience for a bit too long, which means that when the nasty bits do kick off it sometimes feels gratuitous. Unlike the original it is difficult to feel any sympathy with any of Jigsaw’s victims which again makes the elaborate trials that are inflicted on them feel a little hollow. The refreshing originality of Saw meant that subsequent films would always be hard pressed to stretch out what is a pretty finite premise. Saw II just about manages to tread water and will undoubtedly keep fans of the original happy for an hour or so.