Saw III

Review by Jason Donner

 

Ah… Saw, a splendiferous cavalcade of gore and mayhem the likes of which few have been privileged to witness. From rusty devices such as those you would expect to find lining the walls of Hell that will tear your head open to a pit full of poking penetrating hypodermic needles, your only hope of salvation resting at the bottom of this crater of pain.

Although admittedly base entertainment designed to appeal to the most primitive of instincts, the Saw movies are – despite themselves – an entertaining package. Sure, you may feel dirty afterwards, but the same could be said of a Friday the 13th or Uwe Boll movie. I love them… so sue me.

So why am I so disappointed with the latest and, if any indication, last entry into this franchise? Why do the blades of Saw III seem so dull in comparison to the first two movies? Have I just gotten so blasé about the whole affair? So… desensitized to the gore and violence that I just don’t care anymore?

In Saw III, the serial killer Jigsaw is dying from his brain tumor and, with the help of his apprentice, Amanda, enacts one final game to teach a lesson to a man eaten up by vengeance. Is someone so destroyed on the inside due to the death of his son willing to spare the lives of people who looked the other way?

This plot is one of the things that Saw III manages to do right that the other two movies didn’t and that is that the cast of characters are more sympathetic. Unlike the previous movies, you do have a slight emotional interest in seeing a couple of these guys live another day.

The problem is that the movie isn’t scary. Yeah, there’s the thrill of watching some of the traps wind down to the death of someone, but as for actual scares? None. Not a one. I coined the term way back when I reviewed the movie Mimic, but this movie relies on icky horror.

That in itself is not a terrible thing, but the body count is depressingly low and the torture devices used by jigsaw, with the exception of “the rack,” just aren’t that imaginative. It’s as though the inventiveness that drove me to this disgusting franchise in the first place is dying along with Jigsaw himself.

The ending is excellent and produces a great twist as you would expect that once again turns the entire movie on its ear, but it’s really hard to care too terribly much by that point. This film isn’t exactly out of gas, but it is running on fumes and, if by some miracle Saw III really is the last movie I would advise the producers to cut and run while they can.

Jigsaw is dead. Long love Jigsaw.