The first “Saw” was a grisly tour-de-force of gruesome violence and menacing puzzles, but the real jolt was how the film neatly wrapped up every plot point with a capable yet shocking ending.

Much like “The Sixth Sense,” “Saw” left a scattered array of clues to back up its conclusions, but while “The Sixth Sense” used the entire narrative to tease the audience with inescapable conclusions, “Saw” needed only one seemingly insignificant scene to set into motion its disturbing machinations. Unfortunately, the sequel to “Saw” isn’t close to being as disturbing and manipulative as its predecessor.

The Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) is a unique case – a serial killer who doesn’t actually commit murder, but rather, lures his victims into a grotesque series of puzzles that do the work for him. Following the bloody events of the first film, Jigsaw kidnaps Daniel (Erik Knudsen), the young son of police detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg), and locks him in a booby trap-laden room with five other people. As Daniel and his fellow prisoners struggle to find an antidote to a deadly nerve agent swirling through their veins, Eric must enter into a game of wits with Jigsaw himself.

Only a few of the film’s characters are really that detailed. This is truly a shame, because the filmmakers seem unable to distinguish three-dimensional characters and sordid cliches. This is a major blow to the film, because the first “Saw” triumphed in the way the audience could sympathize with its characters. But this point is totally moot in the sequel, which seems content to make up for the loss with buckets of blood and gore without any real context.

The movie botches the sense of moral ambiguity surrounding the very character of Jigsaw. In the first film, Jigsaw seemed to want to help people – in his own twisted way – forcing flawed characters to accept the painful limitations of their lives through bloody lessons in suffering. Not once in the second film does Jigsaw utter his famous thesis – “People are so ungrateful to be alive.” As a result, Jigsaw is much less of a disturbingly compelling and morally ambiguous character as he was in the first film.

Ultimately, “Saw II” is barely a worthy rental, and much more, a symbol of obvious commercialization fading through the breakthrough nature of the first film. If successful at the box office, a “Saw III” seems quite likely. Hopefully by then, the crucial mistakes of the second film will be corrected. No one wants to see poorly-done “Saw” direct-to-video offerings flooding the market, which is the tragic fate of many other great horror movie franchises.