There are, however, plenty of bullets, razors, nails and other nasty toys for the latest round of contestants to play with. Saw II is more sadistic fun for those who don't see the oxymoron in that phrase. There's more scenery, more victims and more of Jigsaw's macabre deathtraps, but even less reason to explain all that wince-inducing bloodshed, apart from the sick pleasure director and audience share in watching other people suffer.

This time around, Jigsaw's upped the potential body count, offing one of Mathews's informants in the opening scene, then locking eight complete strangers in a filthy old house for the detective to find. He has two hours before the toxic gas pumping through the vents leaves this fresh set of victims vomiting up their insides -- that is, if the booby traps Jigsaw set around the house don't kill them first. Lost your appetite yet? Oh yeah, and one of the captives happens to be Mathews's teenage son.

Mathews, of course, is the target of Jigsaw's meta-game, with the locked-house scenario devised to rile him into doing something foolish, but his half of the puzzle isn't nearly as promising as the gorier fate facing the other eight. I remember being caught off guard years ago by Seven, but when it comes to movies like this, the only reason we go is to see harm visited on these deeply imperfect characters. There is, of course, the consolation that all this torture isn't happening to us, but also the perverse curiosity that allies us with the man responsible for inflicting so much pain.

We don't necessarily want Jigsaw to win, but we do want him to get far enough along that the full scope of his plan becomes clear. Jigsaw was basically the hero of the original Saw, the last man standing, and here, audiences finally get a chance to face the madman (who spent the entire first movie lurking in the shadows) and find out why he concocts these dastardly games. Meeting Jigsaw in the flesh is a draw, I suppose, but also a letdown, considering the far nastier outcomes we're capable of imagining for poor Wahlberg.

That's not to say the movie doesn't present us with all sorts of colorful nightmare fodder. There's a baseball bat outfitted with steel spikes that's more or less guaranteed to do some harm, and I don't think I'll ever be able to erase the sight of an ex-junkie clawing her way through a pit full of hypodermic syringes. But the explanation for all this mayhem eludes me, and even a lame last-minute twist isn't enough to cover the fact that Jigsaw ain't as clever as the movie thinks he is.

[as featured in The Miami Herald]