Saw IV Reviews

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since it was available on the KPN pluspakket, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, if you would believe the other reviews for this movie on this website, it seems to have a decent reputation but, to be honest, I really struggled to care about the damned thing. At least, I have to admit that it wasn’t some complete garbage though. Indeed, the fact that I saw the previous installments during the last couple of weeks helped me to see the connection with all the movies and it was pretty neat to see all these returning characters (I did struggle to keep track of all these cops names though: Rigg, Hoffman, Strahm, Perez, Matthews, Kerry). It was also interesting to show John Kramer before he became Jigsaw but I’m not so sure if it was a great idea to give yet another explanation on why he became a serial killer. I mean, the terminal cancer thingy was already intriguing enough and, since he had brain cancer, you could argue that his tumor was making him doing some crazy sh*t. However, by making him losing his child on top of that, it actually really changed how we view this character. Anyway, that was pretty much the only things that worked for me though. Indeed, in my opinion, the story was just a convoluted mess, even more than with the previous installments and I’m not sure I completely followed everything happening during the 3rd act. Eventually, the whole idea of this franchise is to show that Jigsaw is incredibly smart. However, all his plans, tricks and booby traps are just way too far-fetched so nothing happening seem hardly believable and, as a result, I just didn’t care much about what happened to all these poor characters. Another thing that bothered me was how they brought up a 2nd accomplice. Indeed, with ‘Saw II’, it did work fairly well with Amanda because they took their time to explain her backstory but, with this new sidekick, it was however completely random. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was still watchable, I thought it was still rather weak and I don’t think it is really worth a look.

Tracy: What you can't do, is save everyone.

After the remains of Detective Kerry are found FBI agents Strahm and Perez are called into help veteran Detective Hoffman. But then SWAT commander Riggs goes missing and he becomes the latest officer to become a part of the Jigsaw madness. Riggs must play a game in order to save the lives of one of his best friend, Jigsaw playing on how Riggs will stop at nothing until he feels that everyone is safe.

This is far better then Saw 3 and could still use just a tad more improving to reach the level of the original. All though what Saw 4 did was take us back to the roots of John Kramer, how he became ruthless and deadly. John had more than one reason for doing what he did, and he took it to a whole new level because of one thing that happened while he was with his wife Jill Tuck. I liked it better when Jigsaw John Kramer was just a man with Terminal Cancer looking to teach people what they still had. Now they have Jigsaw painted as the man who had it all and lost it all in a short period of time. The revealing of past events will always happen as sequels progress, but adding too much substance to your character or revealing new info too late in the game can turn people off.

However being that it has been over a year since I last watched a Saw film I am willing to treat this as the first piece to a new beginning to the Saw Series and if I see it that way I can appreciate this film. I liked the first one, original full of tension basically the first purely original horror film in years, the second followed closely behind and I was perhaps looking to the third to close the series, and then when it was the worst of the ones I have seen thus far I really figured there was nowhere else they could possibly go and the legend that was Jigsaw had finally overstayed its welcome. I like the actors that have been attached to these films. Tobin Bell, Danny Glover, Donnie Wahlberg , Shawnee Smith; They have all played major parts and have all done well, but this will perhaps go down as another horror franchise that could not figure out when enough was enough.

Many people tend to only see the Saw films as Gore and more Gore, but they truly do have a message hidden deep down within the hideous traps that Jigsaw sets, that message is that we are in control of our destiny, and if we love what are given and appreciate what we have even if it is not the greatest then we can be happy in life. Jigsaw wants to teach people a serious lesson and he does that, but many people are more fascinated with what gadget he will use next or how these people continue to play his game then they are with the point behind his games. When the producers began to notice this Pattern they perhaps should have perhaps toned down the Gore and focused more on the reason, but this film itself has a random unnecessary scene where a random crime Scene Investigator gets shot with a rod to the head. She was not involved in the game, just a victim of circumstance and a chance for people to see another death.

I appreciate what Saw has done for the Horror genre and what the actors involved have done to prove that acting in Horrors does not in fact have to be atrociously bad. Saw has fallen victim to some of the classic horror clichés like having the main character die only to return in some improbable way or just having it continue after he/she has died. In the end this is just a horror film, that tries to mess with my mind but couldn’t. Come horror genre find a film that can change the way I see the world and mess with my mind for life, I will be waiting.

I am not going to lie, I thought this one was going to fall drastically short of saw 1 and 2, three was just O.K. But surprisingly it was better than all of them, with the exception of the original, which in my opinion has become a classic.

"Saw IV" has every ingredient of what a Saw film is supposed to have, and more. The story is great, not as in depth, due to it being the fourth installment, but it was still pretty good. They really went deep into what the Saw franchise is all about, which is what the fans want. They added some interesting camera features as well, including quick transactions between scenes, creating an awesome looking affect, it is difficult to explain, but you will enjoy it.

After the first three, I thought it was over, seeing as Jigsaw is deceased, but they really pulled it off well with the twists and turns, and replacing Jigsaw.

I highly recommend watching this film, it is definitely worth it.

Saw 4 was the breath of fresh air that the series needed for so long. Saw 3 is the weakest of them all, because there's way too much sadistic scenes and way too little story.

The fourth film changes that. It doesn't has as many pointless gruesome scenes as its predecessor and it has an evolving and more believeble plot.

Picking up from where the third film left off, the film has two main storylines: one shows us that Jigsaw leaves a final puzzle behind after his death on the previous film; and the other is a flashback of what seems to be some time before the original film, showing a series of events that led "John" to lose all hope and turn into Jigsaw.

The film closes all the lose points left behind by all four. It has a really surprising ending which matches with the first.

As good as the original, if this would be the last of the series (I think not) it would end very well.