Series Review: Saw

I remember being about 13 when this, the first of the "Saw" series, was released and blew everyone's mind (myself included) and what I remember most vividly was how fast the film went from being "cool" to "lame" in popular opinion. During my first experience with Saw as a franchise I bowed out after the third installment and deemed it "beneath me" like the pretentious little prick I was. Now that I'm older and matured a bit I thought I should give these films an honest, unbiased chance. This turned out to be harder then I expected. As I'm watching this all I can think is "Wow, look how obvious all these set-ups for big plot twists are" then I think "Of course everything is obvious, I already know everything" and when this is the case it's very difficult to judge what is well done and what is not. At the end of the day, all I can really do is say how I felt about it whether my opinions are do to previous biases or not, so here it is. The first thing I'll bring up is the plot, which is definitely hampered by previous knowledge of the film, is pretty damn silly. It just feels so damn contrived and forced. This movie written like an episode of Macgyver but at least Macgyver knows it's being silly. Every time an item or clue or whatever is shown it feels like it's saying "Hey, see this? Remember this, it's important. Got that?". This doesn't make the audience feel clever when said item is suddenly relevant, I'd say quite the opposite is true actually. When I see things like this I think "do the studios really think we're this dumb?". Despite the rampant pseudo-intellectualism throughout, I can't honestly say I disliked the film. There is a lot I don't like about it but I can't say the film isn't enjoyable. The acting is awful, it has that early 2000's horror movie visual style that I can't stand but it's still a fun movie. I think the biggest benefit of the film is the pacing. Normally I'm not a fan of fast-pace movies like this but I think it works because a lot of the ideas briefly presented aren't really that interesting anyway, so why not just breeze through them. The more I think about it, I can't really think of many reasons I liked this movie. I guess it has good atmosphere and Jigsaw's character is well designed. In sudden conclusion, do I still like this movie? Yes. Is it a good movie? Not really.

I genuinely used to think that people who liked Saw II over the original only did because there was more deaths and didn't care that the film was dumbed-down significantly in comparison to the complex masterpiece the first film was. That's what I used to think. Now I realize that this film may be simpler than the original but it's also a hell of a lot less silly. Saw had way too much going on for it's own good. What we have here is a much more focused film and nothing overly goofy (aside from the convict characters) happens until the last couple minutes when the inevitable plot-twists and montage of all the clues that hinted at said plot-twists occurs, but I've come to expect that from every film in the series. The film still isn't great. The film still feels rushed, the interrogation scenes with Jigsaw could have been fleshed out a bit more, the character interactions are poorly written, but the film is still fun. More fun than the original at least.

I used to passionately hate this movie when it came out and it definitely turned me off from this franchise. Coming back to it, all the reasons I didn't like it are still present but to a less infuriating degree. To it's credit, the film does one thing well and that's have a (comparatively) natural feeling plot-twist, but unfortunately Saw III is just too muddled with bullshit for this to truly be a redeeming factor. The film is split into 3 interwoven parts. We have the plot-line with the doctor, Jigsaw and Amanda which is the best part of the film and, on it's own, probably one of the best things a Saw film has done up to this point. Unfortunately, the plot-line with Jeff, a man consumed with vengeance after the loss of his 8-year-old son to a drunk driver is clearly filler and the rest of the film being over-explained back-story of things that are either obvious or completely unnecessary. With this movie being close to 2 hours (a solid 20 minutes longer than most films in the series) the back-story could have been totally cut and the film would have been far better for it.

Saw IV continues the trend of muddling the series with excessive back-story. If the back-story to this franchise was at all interesting this could possibly be acceptable but even so, nothing is creepy when you know everything about it. At Saw III it just seemed the creators completely forgot what a scary villain is. So with almost zero mystery left to Jigsaw's character they decide to focus on figuring out who has been helping Jigsaw and Amanda with these traps. To explain this, we are given a whole new cast of characters that we are supposed to latch onto even though every character is about as interesting as a glass of milk. When you have a slew of characters that you have no information about, it doesn't fucking matter which one is the bad guy and that's not an intriguing plot and with a plot this bad the twist is inevitably uninteresting. Another thing, I thought the editing was goofy on the previous entries but this, this took it to a whole 'nother level.

Saw V continues off of Saw IV as if they were the same movie. Nothing new is introduced, and not much really happens. We do have a "game" in this one to distract from the sheer nothing going on around it but said game is essentially a bloodied-up after-school special about the benefits of teamwork. Seriously, it's that lame. The only reason this is better than IV is that there's less bullshit back-story and the editing is less obnoxious. The twist is probably equally as lame though.

Nothing new to report really apart from the theme of the movie being "INSURANCE COMPANY BAAAAAAAD!". Otherwise it's the same old bullshit the last two movies have been. Retelling the events of the the first three films while revealing how this new character was involved while I sit around strongly not caring. This is also probably the most muddled story-wise a Saw movie has been yet but on the plus side, the end is actually kind of cool even though it kind of comes out of nowhere plot-wise.

Finally, the finale. With Saw: The Final Chapter the writers realize their audience and shamelessly pander to them. They know people just go to a Saw film to see some people die, so they give it to them. Honestly, the movie is better for it. They ditch the muddled and silly story-line, keep things simple while still wrapping things up (but of course it still ends on a cliffhanger). This is probably the most consistently entertaining entry since Saw II. The death scenes are definitely stepped up in terms of brutality and with a more straight-forward story, Saw: The Final Chapter is actually pretty fun. The only downside is the twist ending which was painfully bad, far worse than normal actually.

SERIES BEST TO WORST:

1. Saw II
2. Saw
3. Saw III
4. Saw: The Final Chapter
5. Saw VI
6. Saw V
7. Saw IV

OVERALL: 2/5