REVIEW: SAW 3D (2010)

Well, I think it’s time to level with you guys; the SAW series, after 7 movies, has gotten played out and tired. I know, I know. It’s hard to believe, and I had a hard time writing it myself.

Director: Kevin Greutert

Starring: Sean Patrick Flanery, Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1477076/

Our movie begins with a flashback to the first movie while the credits play, where we get to see Dr. Lawrence Gordon, played by a very not-Princess-Bride Cary Elwes yet again, cauterizing his stump of a leg on a hot wall…then we see some other very “important” shots of Hoffman and Jill from the last movie. We’re not even three minutes into this yet and already all I’ve seen is the table scraps from old movies. That’s not a good start!

OK, so the actual story begins with an interesting twist on the previous SAW films – two guys waking up in a trap. No, wait; that isn’t interesting or a twist at all…scratch that. What is a little different is that they’re actually in a big glass cage in the middle of a public square, where everyone can watch. Basically they have to play tug o’ war with two big saws or else this chick they were both dating at the same time dies. Yes, you read that right. SAW is now catering to the whims of teenage dating sitcoms.

Pfft, they wish that many people would be interested in a SAW movie.

After that we are introduced to our main character Bobby, played by one of the Boondock Saints. He’s gained a lot of fame and is even on TV just because he pretends to be a Jigsaw survivor and wrote a book about the “experience.” OK, where do I start? For one, what the hell does that book read like? I seriously want to know. “And then I slowly had to chop my leg off. The pain was excruciating. I was seriously getting tired of that dark green and black scenery everywhere. I remembered the good days when I was in slasher movies starring Sylvester Stallone…” And second, WHY?! Why would you do this? Isn’t there ANY OTHER WAY of getting money and fame that you could try first?! I just don’t get it. Is this really the best idea you had? Were you just sitting around one day going ‘hmmm, how to make some money…oh, I know! I’ll pretend I got put into a trap by a known psychopathic mastermind who can probably track me down when he finds out what I’ve been doing! I AM A GENIUS.’

So to amp up the douchiness of this whole scenario, Bobby actually has the stones to host a self help seminar for people who have been in Jigsaw’s traps; yeah, just like an AA meeting or something. Wow. I think we have a high-water mark for horribleness here – have you ever heard of a more despicable piece of human garbage? This is the equivalent of a guy claiming to be a cancer patient and trying to talk real cancer patients into feeling better about themselves. He makes Patrick Swayze in Donnie Darko look like Gandhi in comparison!

Not to mention the stuff he says about surviving the games helping your life outlook actually agrees with what the Jigsaw Killer has been spouting out since movie #1, which is testamount to being objectively incorrect and insane anyway. The character of John Kramer was a very sick man who had some very disturbed notions about justice and repenting for one’s sins, and while some sick-minded individuals in these films might have gone along with that, that doesn’t mean it’s anywhere near his place to judge people. And for this guy to be on TV spouting this kind of nonsense, and holding help groups for is just so amazingly and incredibly insulting in this movie’s universe. Christ; he’s worse than the other victims of SAW traps in all the other movies combined. Combined.

So, after that debauchery, we see another Jigsaw trap, and I have to say, for those of you who always wanted to see the singer from Linkin Park playing a skinhead, you’re in luck. And for those of you who always wanted to see the singer from Linkin Park as a skinhead AND in a SAW trap where he gets himself and 3 other people killed at the same time well…Christmas done come early for you this year.

OK, the obvious joke is to use the lines "I tried so hard/And got so far/But in the end/It didn't even matter" here...but I'm not going to do it. That's right; I'm not!

I think we've got a new candidate for silliest face in a horror movie right here. Bonus points for the hook in his mouth; that's always a game-winner.

Speeeed racer!

OK, but seriously, let’s go through a play by play, because this is seriously amazing. I mean, it’s so goofy! The basic idea of this trap is that the skinhead leader Linkin Park-singer guy is glued to a car seat (it happens), and has to pull himself loose and pull a lever. If he doesn’t, things will happen in this order:

1. The car he’s sitting in will fall on top of his girlfriend, who is tied down below him.

2. Then the car will accelerate forward and rip out his friend’s face, who has a hook through his jaw attached to the back of the car.

3. And finally, the car will ram into his other friend, who is strapped to the wall.

Needless to say, he fails, and the ensuing mayhem is perhaps doubly the series’ goriest AND funniest moment ever. Click here to see it! I'm not putting the video itself here, since it's pretty graphic. Linkin Park members mean it's serious business for sure, and I know that will make it very hard to watch for any of you who have taste in music. But if you can get past that hurdle...this is a funny video. At least I thought so...

So after that incredibly glorious moment of cheese, the movie sadly never recovers, as we pretty much go into the same old stock blandness that every other SAW movie has to offer: a guy wandering through a dark, abandoned building, encountering various traps with people he knows in them and crying when he fails to save them…but wait, this SAW movie has something that the others don’t. Lead actor Sean Patrick Flanery is impressively bland and nonchalant about pretty much everything that happens, barely registering any kind of emotional reaction at all. I’d say this is horrendously silly and unrealistic, but at least we don’t have to listen to too much ear-aching whining this time around. Oh, except from his wife, who is attached to what looks like some kind of failed sex toy:

Yeah, on her hands and knees in a dark, creepy dungeon of an insane asylum? Not exactly a turn on, movie. I can't decide which part turned me off more; the fact that we saw a girl's throat torn open in the previous scene, or the fact that she's acting in a SAW movie at all.

The traps are really, really dull this time around, and even when they maybe could be interesting, it’s hard to be invested when they border on actual impossibility, like the one where the girl somehow has a hook perfectly latched into her stomach with a key to the trap on it – how did Hoffman get that in there, again? And the one with Bobby’s best friend having to walk around blindfolded borders on ludicrous. Bobby has to throw him a key from across the room, with a very high chance of it falling through the large open spaces between the wooden planks they’re standing on.

The blindfolded guy can't catch a tiny object thrown at him from several feet away? Call the presses. This trap is totally stupid and unfair.

That story ends when Bobby has to do the same trap he made up when he sold his fake story, which involves putting meat hooks into his chest and climbing up some chains. The only thing this scene evoked was mild amusement when I considered what was going on in his head: “I really wish I had picked a less painful trap to lie about now!” He fails, his wife gets burnt up and not a pulse is raised. One of the least captivating death scenes ever put on screen. This movie’s failure is visible from space.

Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the storyline between Hoffman and Jill, which continues in perhaps the most dull way imaginable, as both characters are about as interesting as stale toast. They try to act, a little bit, but their best efforts can’t combat the soul-crushing blandness of this movie’s script, and so it is in vein. When Hoffman kills her, I felt about as much tension as the last time I clipped my little toenail. I mean it’s seriously really underwhelming.

Hoffman escapes and it looks like he’s going to make it out OK, but he gets taken out by Dr. Gordon, who was put in so that the fans felt like this movie had anything at all to do with the first one, which was frankly the only movie in this damn series worth anything. And it ends on another clichéd and tired "Game over" line with a door closing and leaving Hoffman in the dark? The circle of worthlessness is complete. Can you even get any less interesting?!

Eh…this was really, really bland. I’d say more, but really I just feel bad for even watching this movie, so I’m just gonna end this review now and save myself the trouble of thinking about it further.

REVIEW: SAW VI (2009)

Hahahaha…oh, man, this was funny. I’m sorry; I really shouldn’t be trying to do this review without showing you some of the absolutely hilarious acting and scenes this movie has, but I’m afraid still pictures will have to suffice, because it’s all I’ve got handy. This is the sixth SAW movie, and it mostly fails at being scary, instead just hitting comedic and silly. Let’s dig into this carnival of camp and see what makes it so enjoyably over the top.

Director: Kevin Greutert

Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Peter Outerbridge

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233227/

Our movie begins with a young woman waking up with a really out-dated dental contraption on her head:

It could also be some kind of headset to communicate with aliens...

OK, OK, it's not any of that stuff. It’s actually our favorite animatronics nightmare, the SAW doll. He tells the young woman that she and her companion, who both do good jobs giving people loans they can never pay back, that they have to cut off their flesh and put it on a scale, and whoever can get the heaviest flesh wins. A great contest for the whole family indeed. Let’s introduce the idea at the next elementary school field day!

Now, pardon my sick sense of humor, but aside from the fact that this is incredibly gory, I just find this whole scene hilarious. I think it’s for two reasons. One, this is just SO OVERDONE. Look, movie; in Se7en, all the guy had to do to get the lawyer to cut his flesh off was point a gun at his head. You’re doing it all wrong. You don’t steal old 1930s dental contraptions and mix them with crude bear traps. You don’t have to construct all these elaborate traps. A simple gun to the head is enough to make people do anything!

And I know nothing about that…nothing except what I’ve seen in movies. Stop looking at me like that.

Oh, and two, the acting is just silly. I’m going to introduce a little game that I like to call ‘silliest faces in a gory horror movie’! Here’s candidate #1:

How do you think the script for this scene went?

JIGSAW: All your life, you’ve blah blah blah…

OPENING KILL GIRL: AHHHHHHHH! *blood noises*

OPENING KILL GUY: GRRRRRRAARRRRG! *more blood noises*

Truly worthy of Shakespeare!

So, yeah, then we see our new Jigsaw Killer, Mark Hoffman, cleaning up a crime scene while a flashback from the last movie plays. He gets called over to the crime scene we just saw, and gets a shock when he finds out that another character from the older movies, Perez, is still alive, and is now helping look for the guy they think is Jigsaw, who Hoffman framed. Meanwhile, an evil health insurance man named William Easton is busy having flashbacks to happy times when he used to deny terminally ill patients money just to be a giant jackass. Oh, the better days. He interacts with his whole firm which means you’ll get to see them all die eventually…oh, I’m sorry, was that a spoiler?

Then Jigsaw’s wife comes into the picture and it turns out that the big reveal IS…she has no personality aside from being in on the whole murder game plots. That’s it. Hurrah? Also, there’s a journalist character, who is portrayed as sneaky, over-confident and self serving, doing a lot of exploitation pieces about Jigsaw to make him look bad in the media after his death…yeah, because he would have looked so good otherwise; what with being a mastermind behind several gruesome murders and all, right?

"Ohoh, I have no other character traits but being a nosy, moral-less journalist! Muahahaha!" Yeah, it was a generic picture caption for one of my reviews, but it's about as much work as the writers put into this character, so you shut up, reader!

Either way, aren’t you tired of journalists in movies being portrayed as moral-less leeches who don’t have any qualms with digging in unpleasant places for stories? I am. Next paragraph!

So, yeah, not much to say about the rest of the movie, as it all kind of runs together. The parts with Tobin Bell playing Jigsaw are quite good actually, as he has a lot of charisma and still seems like an interesting character. Costas Mandylor as Hoffman is decent, too, although the writing for him is pretty phoned in, and doesn’t realize the full potential of the character. Mandylor does a decent job at playing the character, with some fits of subdued insanity, but eh, he still could have been better, because after all, who doesn’t expect amazing Oscar-level performances from a SAW film, right? The directing is riddled with all kinds of spastic cuts and quick edits that would probably give small children seizures. Pretty stock stuff for these films…

While I don’t want to get away from this very objective critiques of this very important movie, we do have a plot to continue slogging through, don’t we? Now we find all our characters moved into this abandoned building with tons of elaborate torture games set up. You know, I’m amazed. I’m amazed at the lengths these movies go to set up these traps. In a few movies it’ll be like, “Oh no! They’ve kidnapped the entire US Senate and forced them to do some horrifically gory act! And they got the entire Iranian military defense team too! They’re setting them up in that suspicious old abandoned building in the middle of nowhere that has a bunch of complex machinery being hauled in during the day!...why didn’t we notice this earlier again?”

So let’s take a rundown on the traps for the movie, i.e. the only reason anyone ever watched a SAW movie. First up we have a delightful game in which whoever breathes first gets their lungs crushed.

And you thought all those times you played 'who can hold their breath the longest' at the pool would be useless...

Then we see what happens when William the evil insurance man has to choose between an old sick woman employee with lots of family, and a young guy employee who has no family and “will disappear from the world without a trace,” because he has no family? How does one even do that? Does he really have NO ONE at all who cares about him? Did he kill them all? Oh, screw it; this is just making me more confused.

After that we get an intense game of Double Dare when this attorney has to make her way through a maze of hot pipes or else she’ll be…hot-piped to death. Man that sounded like a bad innuendo. She makes it to the end and finds out the key to the bomb strapped on her is actually inside William! What follows is a horrible reality show in the making:

When Survivor just doesn't cut it anymore.

While this is all going on, we have a sequence of scenes with what is APPARENTLY William’s family, locked in a room opposite the journalist from earlier. Both rooms have lots of deadly acid in them locked inside containers, along with switches that say ‘Live’ or ‘Die.’ But that doesn’t matter anyway. Let’s have a scene with a super-fun merry-go-round ride:

Yeah, I remember when I used to wake up tied to childrens' playground equipment all the time; fun days, those.

Yes, this is the movie’s big ace in the hole. Apparently he can stop this gun from shooting two of his assistants from work, but the other four will die. This leads to perhaps the most hilarious scene in any SAW movie when they all start trying to appeal to him not to kill them, like they’re vying for an extra bonus pay-raise at the job. I don’t mind the ones who plead saying they’re pregnant or have kids to look after, but it’s the ones who try and bring up stuff from work like “I did everything you said!” or “I made the most money for you!” It’s just really over the top, and it comes off as ridiculous rather than desperate with the actors they chose. Maybe if we knew these characters better, it would seem more serious, but I had to hold back laughter watching this scene.

And speaking of over the top, I think we have a new candidate for ‘silliest faces in a horror movie’!

Is he turning into a werewolf or something?

This guy is just a RIOT, man. When he gets picked to die, he goes on this huge rant about how much women suck and how much he hates William’s policy…because the hardest way to hit a man who’s been tortured all day is by telling him he’s crappy at his job. When he looks away, the kid goes berserk and screams “YOU LOOK AT ME WHEN YOU’RE KILLING ME!!!” Gee, I think this kid’s on the fast track to becoming the new Kiefer Sutherland. You know, if we ever need a replacement for him…

"YOU DON'T!!!"

So then William gets to the end of the maze, where it’s revealed that the family that we thought was his was actually the family of the last guy William denied a loan to. The mother is too wimpy to kill him for this, but the son goes ahead and kills him. The movie basically just brushes over this and doesn’t bother to try and give the scene any emotional weight at all – I mean I know it’s a SAW film and I shouldn’t expect much, but seriously, they could have a really gripping story here if they wanted to. It wouldn’t be too hard to incorporate some depth into the kid’s character as we see what effect killing a man has on him. But nope! We just get a scene of William getting burned to death by acid and having half his body fall off. Hooray for lazy writing!

There’s another subplot about Hoffman going nuts and killing everyone who finds out he’s the new Jigsaw Killer, and then getting killed himself by Jill. But that’s plot, and so, it is unimportant compared to the gore and traps. There. Am I a true SAW fan now?

This movie is silly. I don’t hate it like I’ve hated some other films I’ve reviewed, but it’s just so over the top and ineffectual at displaying any kind of real tension or drama that it becomes a big self-parody. It’s not as bad as some of the other SAW movies, but it’s not good either. And that’s my review for this movie. See you next time when I review SAW: The Final Chapter.

Man, that was a lot nicer than some of these review endings get…I hope I’m not losing my touch.