Who's in it: Donnie Wahlberg, Tobin Bell, Franky G
The Basics: It's sequel time. The Jigsaw Killer locks a group of people in a booby-trapped house; they have to find their way out before they inhale too much lethal nerve gas.
What's the Deal? How about no sawing? No one saws anything in this movie. Beyond that, I won't divulge spoilers, because it's uncool, but here's what you can know — this movie is boring. The first Saw was a mystery before it was a gore-fest. You learned along with the victims why they were being killed. It was about fear of not knowing why, and it had a sense of dread that made you scared. That's all missing here. There are some cool murder contraptions, though.
Don't Be Late: If you're thinking of taking that last call on your cell phone and waltzing into this movie 10 minutes after it starts, then you just wasted your money. The coolest, sickest killing takes place immediately. It's so good the audience applauds it.
That's Why They Invented the Steadicam: There are way too many annoying jump-cuts, too many flashes of blinding white light and too much chugga-chugga Mudvayne metal, all desperately trying to build tension where there is none.
Great Moments in Casting: A former New Kid on the Block, the guy from Showgirls who was the terrible artistic dancer and one of the little girls from 7th Heaven are all here, waiting to be killed gruesomely.
Percent of Inventive Deaths: 60 — the rest are all vomiting blood and dying of nerve gas. The Jigsaw guy didn't make enough spring-loaded, razor-studded death-machines to go around.
Insult to Injury: When filmmakers rely on gotcha! scares like harmless characters coming up behind other harmless characters and making them jump (or even worse, stuff like toppling milk cans that make loud noises), they're just being lazy.