Saw 3D Review

For a movie shown only in 3D, the latest installment in the Saw franchise completely falls flat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of some of the Saw movies, namely the three of them before they killed off the title character, and number six, which seemed to be a solid return to the roots of what made the franchise great.

In the first three movies, each trap was thought out, it served as a commentary on the life the victim lived, and what that person was willing to do in order to preserve that life. The traps in the first movie made it a psychological thriller, there was very little actual blood and guts shown, most of it was implied by seeing the aftermath of the trap. The traps in this latest installment include a machine gun and a man who has to pull out two of his teeth. Neither of these inspire suspense, they are not well thought out, and serve no social commentary at all. They are simply there to show torture.

Social Commentary?

Pulling teeth? Honestly? This is what the series has reduced itself to? While I am quite certain that while it would be painful to have to rip two of my molars from my jaw, it is neither suspenseful nor life-threatening. People have their teeth pulled all the time, and I’m sure it’s not pleasant, but we’re not out arresting dentists as serial killers or attempted murderers, are we?

Oh no! He's got her in his clutches!

The film begins with a great trap concerning two men both in love with the same woman, who made them do illegal things for her and was just generally bad for both of them. The trap was well thought out and made a statement. Sadly, this theme didn’t stay for the rest of the movie.

After this reminder of what could have been, we are dropped right in the middle of the feud between John Kramer/Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) widow, Jill Kramer (Betsy Russell) and his heir-apparent, Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor).  Aside from this feud, the main story of this movie centers around Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery) a “jigsaw survivor” who has written a book about his experience and turned it into fame and money. He also runs a support group where the familiar face of Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes) pops up.

He's Ba-ack!

Mr. Dagen seems to have some secrets though, leading to a Jigsaw-led tour through rooms that have some significance (in this case, the letters from the word SURVIVE used as an acronym for how to get one’s life in order, taken directly from Dagen’s own book). In each room, Dagen must choose to either attempt to save or let die someone who worked with him and knew his secret. While the traps are mildly creative, they don’t come close to what fans of the first three movies enjoyed, especially when the idea behind the “tour through your life” idea has been used twice already in previous movies (numbers three and six).

The fact that Hoffman is revealed as Jigsaw’s accomplice gets the Internal Affairs division involved, and introduces yet another detective to chase the killer. Mandylor as Hoffman just doesn’t seem to have the presence to pull off the type killer that made Tobin Bell so successful in the role for the first three movies, and honestly, if you’re going to continue to bring back a series like this, at least have the same respect for the audience that the Jason/Freddy/Michael Myers movies did and just invent some way to resurrect your killer. Substitute serial killers just don’t cut it, especially not in when they are revealed to not be ingenious or creative, just very good at following someone else’s strict instructions.

In the end, the series wraps up in a less than spectacular fashion, definitely not what one would expect given the quality of the first movie in the series. There is no trademark super-speed flashback through the movie to piece things together for the audience, as nothing is kept secret, everything is revealed to the audience as it happens leading to basically no suspense and no real twist to the plot, what you see is what you get. The series reveals yet another co-conspirator with Jigsaw, meaning he has gone from a simple serial killer to some kind of twisted cult leader who convinces others to help him torture and kill people, usually by torturing or attempting to kill them first to show them the “error of their ways” and bring them to his way of thinking.

Honestly, the series would have been much better off without this weak showing, and even more insulting to the audience is that it seems there were a handful of “3D” scenes thrown in so the movie could be touted in the latest craze, and only shown in 3D, not giving the viewer a choice and bleeding just a little more money before wrapping up the series. I would have been happy with the series wrapping up as a trilogy, when the main character died, instead of drawing out the name as a cash cow and trashing what could have been a perfectly good trilogy of psychological suspense movies. IS this really the final chapter? Only time will tell, but I can guarantee I won’t be lining up to see any more entries in this dead series.

The verdict: Saw 3D receives a 1 out of 10, the only thing keeping it above a 0/10 is that the traps not associated with the main storyline are actually decent and remind me of the good old days of the Saw franchise, even if here they only serve to tease us with how good the movie could have been.