Saw VI

Review by Jason Donner

 

I've said over and over again that the Saw saga should have called it quits with the third installment.  Granted, that one wasn't that great, but at least it would have been a logical jumping off point rather than stretching this formerly acceptable franchise out into sheer lunacy.

Instead, and even though Tobin Bell's character, the driving force behind all of the Saw movies, was killed off three damn movies ago, it clunkers and sputters along on fumes alone with increasingly convoluted plots and hard to follow storylines.

It is with a bit of bewilderment and surprise that I actually found myself enjoying Saw VI.  Who would have thought that the sixth installment in a series would be a good one?  All right, at least those of you who haven't seen a Star Wars, Star Trek, or Friday the 13th movie.

That's my judgment, by the way, that Saw VI is good.  Not great, just good.  Still, with the last two terrible movies behind us, "good" is an accomplishment.

This time around, Jigsaw's apprentice tackles a bastard in the health care industry -- namely an insurance agent who conducts his own death panel to save the company he works for money by cutting off customers who need their insurance the most. 

My, how topical of them.

Anyway, the new Jigsaw takes this insurance agent and puts him through hell to teach him the value of life by... well... killing a lot of innocent people.  I'm not sure I understand that part at all.

I do believe that this is the first time I've actually found the story of Jigsaw's apostles to be more interesting than the deathtraps that are set up to snare the poor smucks who Jigsaw kidnaps.  I even have to add that the "cliffhanger" ending at the end has even gotten me interested to see what will transpire in Saw VII when it inevitably comes out.

The traps, on the other hand, seem about as interesting as watching flies hit a windshield, only no where near as entertaining.  The merry-go-round of death was quite clever, I will admit, but the rest of them are just forgettable to the point that one is even recycled from the first movie purely for the nostalgia of just seeing it again.

I wasn't bowled over by this movie, but I will admit to finding it sufficiently entertaining which is something a Saw movie hasn't been since the second one.  I think I'll take that and run with it.