Saw: The Final Chapter (2010)

 THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Oh, man, this movie was something special. I kind of love this movie. It has nothing to do with it being good or having a good story or anything like that. No, I love this movie because it so bad that it is hilarious and fun to watch. Really bad and really fun!

This finale feels like some sort of self parody, not a serious end to the franchise. It seems as if the people who made this movie were having a laugh and giving the finger to people who truly cared about this series.

The movie suffers from many things. One of these things is bad acting. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is comically transparent and evil - though he always was – but now it just feels ridiculous. Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) always wears the same facial expression and Detective Matt Gibson (Chad Donella) was impossible to take seriously due to the terrible acting.

On top of this we have a nonsensical plot. Someone (Sean Patrick Flanery) claims to have escaped Jigsaw’s game and has released a book to show how great he now finds life. Of course, this guy is a phony, but no one seems to understand this. Surely someone would examine the scars on his body or have questioned him thoroughly or something to expose him. Also, this book is mean to have been released and all within the timeline of the films. This doesn’t seem likely to me.

Of course it is him put in the game, where he is given some of the most impossible tasks so far. So impossible we realise this series has given up and just started killing people willy nilly.

Which is why it is now a slasher flick. Oh yeah, Hoffman goes around shanking dudes just because. Obviously he learned nothing from Jigsaw, making everything in the previous films pointless.

So, basically, this franchise has now lost all of its identity just for blood, death, gore, violence and a body count. This is even the first Saw film (and, of course, last) to have an opening death scene that is never brought up. And this death scene takes place in public, for some reason, where a bunch of idiots just crowd around and watch as people show how terrible they are at acting.

Oh, and it turns out Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) is alive and is now the new Jigsaw. Only took them 6 movies to bring him back for a terrible twist ending. We now have no idea what Kramer’s legacy really is because there is no legacy shown. We can’t assume anything because we aren’t given the appropriate material to base a judgement on anything. It’s stupid.

But despite all of this I loved this film, purely because it was so bad. It was almost glorious in how it tried to ruin the series. It isn’t quite up to par with Highlander II levels of ruination, but it goes for it.

But here we are, at the end of this series. What have I learned?

Well, for one, don’t let unfounded prejudices stop you from watching films, you might be pleasantly surprised. Also, that torture porn is somewhat lucrative, but mostly idiotic in this day and age. And finally, the Saw franchise is completely mental!

Final Verdict: 1/10

Saw VI (2009)

THIS REVIEW IS TRYING ITS HARDEST NOT TO SPOIL A SINGLE THING AND HOPEFULLY IT HASN'T, BUT HERE'S A WARNING JUST IN CASE!

I’m shocked I’m about to type this, but here we go: The 6^th Saw film is my favourite in the series. Seriously, I am not kidding. When watching the utter tripe we got from the 4^th and 5^th films, with a lacklustre 3^rd film, I thought the last two films would be awful!

It’s weird to think that, as I watch the Saw films, I think it should be a TV show. All of them seem like they should be hour long episodes in an American TV series. The flashbacks remind me of Lost and the crime segments remind me of CSI. Yet if it was an American TV show then it would have been cancelled because of Saw IV being so badly received, so not all would have turned out well for it.

I honestly don’t want to spoil any of the plot for this movie. It is great as a standalone piece of cinema. What I can say is the general premise of the film, as well as the opening. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) has got away with pinning the Jigsaw copycat killings on Agent Strahm and is now assisting Jill (Betsy Russell) in carrying out John Kramer’s (Tobin Bell) final requests. This consists of making a man play a game where he has to decide on how much he values other people’s lives. Even saying that I have spoiled it slightly, but it’s okay, it is deeper than that.

The tests in this film are pretty damn good. They are simple, yet effective, not unlike the very first film’s game. They all consist of difficult decisions that weigh heavily on the subject’s mind when trying to figure out what to do in such a short period of time. The tests are honestly extremely suspenseful, unlike the tests in the other films, and you feel sorry for the man when he is trying to complete them.

The directing in this film has got a thousand times better, so much so that I feel I have overcome my epilepsy and motion sickness. The acting is so much better and the twists make sense and are suspenseful. It’s hard for me to comment on anything in this film without saying “I really liked it.” Well, Hoffman is transparently evil, but I’m OK with that.

Just... go watch this film. It’s great.

Now to watch the one that had the worst ratings. 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, eh? Pretty bad... Ah well, at least it’s the last one!

Final Verdict: 9/10

Saw V (2008)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

2 + 3 = 5.

Just as this is true, it seems that Saw V is just Saw II and Saw III rolled into one ugly mess. Granted, this film is not as boring, confusing and downright rubbish as Saw IV, but it is still terribly lacklustre.

At the end of Saw IV we found out that Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) looks exactly like Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and this means that trying to piece together events is rather confusing. This lead me to believe, at first, that the ending to Saw IV was more confusing than it actually was. I wrote the review after figuring out they were two completely different people.

A shame, then, that these two people are the leads for this film. Strahm is boringly going on a hunt for knowledge, attempting to discover who the hell put him in some crazy trap that goes against the rules laid out by the films by having no instructions and no way of escape unless Strahm improvises, which he does.

Strahm's research teaches us that Hoffman is a bad guy, which we figured out from the end of Saw IV. However, what we didn’t know is that Hoffman has a slightly different story to Amanda Young, so obviously it needs to be shown in near entirety. Which is boring, because I honestly don’t care. If they simply showed the reason why Hoffman is Kramer’s apprentice then I wouldn’t have minded, but this film decides to show every little step to Hoffman becoming Jigsaw Killer V2.0.

The film, like Saw II, starts off with an opening kill, which is annoying enough. But it gets moronic as it turns out Hoffman created the elaborate device before becoming an apprentice. Where did this detective get his engineering know-how? The film doesn’t answer this. Obviously this is something we don’t need to know about this guy’s backstory.

The game set up is boring to watch too. It is set up in four rooms with five players, going from the first room to the next and to the next. The game seems to require Darwinian “survival of the fittest” gameplay, but in an obvious twist it turns out they were meant to work together, and they totally could have, in order to finish properly and not be terrifyingly mutilated and risk further death.

But wait, what about the third room, which has a bath in the middle of it where an electrical current must pass through to open the next door. But this can only happen if someone is in the bath, therefore dying due to electric shock. They couldn’t all grab a cord and do it individually as they would all run the risk of dying. So this defeats the purpose of the end room!

Yet again, the directing and editing annoys me, and all of the characters try their best to make me hate them. But it doesn’t feel as bad as Saw IV. At least, it isn’t as offensive. Kramer gets to come back for some more flashbacks and he is back to his usual self. Nonetheless, this film still sucks and I don’t recommend it. Just watch Saw II and Saw III, then try to imagine them condensed into one film.

Final Verdict: 2/10