Saw VII.... errr Saw 3D

Directed by:  Kevin Greutert

Written by:  Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan

Starring: Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Chad Donella, Sean Patrick Flanery

Another Halloween means another Saw movie.  This time, I was hoping my seventh annual Halloween weekend trip to the theaters would be better than the previous two trips.  As it turns out, the latest Saw movie is much better than the previous 2 films, but that’s not saying much.

Saw VII… I mean Saw 3D, is the supposed ‘final’ chapter in the successful Saw series.  Those of you familiar with the series should be anticipating this movie, whether it be for reasons of curiosity, or because of shear relief that this franchise if finally over.  While not a die hard fan of the series, I have found them all enjoyable.  Very rarely does a horror franchise come along that spawns more than 3 movies.  When they do, you couldn’t ask for a better collection of films than the Saw series.  Even if you despise all the torturing and twists that occur throughout, you honestly cannot tell me any of these movies is worse than Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, or Halloween III: Season of the Witch.  Simply put, this series has been consistently engaging and highly watchable, no matter what your final opinions may be.

This time around, the formula stays pretty much the same.  We follow a man named Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery, Boondock Saints) going through a series of traps trying to save people closest to him.  The plot is pretty much exactly the same as Saw VI, except this time the character is not an insurance agent, he is a self-proclaimed Jigsaw survivor who has made millions off a self-help book.  As expected, there are numerous other story lines intertwined as well.  Jigsaw’s apprentice Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is hunting down Jigsaw’s wife Jill Kramer (Betsy Russell, as seen in a plastic surgeon’s office) because of how she left him to end the last film.  She ends up hiding out in a ‘safe house’ under supervision of Internal Affairs Agent Gibson (Chad Donella, Final Destination).  Meanwhile, Gibson is trying to track down Hoffman before he kills any more people. 

There is nothing new to offer here, except that there are more traps in this movie than any other entry in the series with 11.  Most of these traps are clever and original, while some are rehashed.  More importantly, the aftermath of all these traps are quite gory, except one or two.  I would say that this is the bloodiest one of the bunch, and that is saying a lot given how gruesome most of these are.  If you don't cringe at a few of these death scenes, you may want to check your pulse.  While some of the bodies ended up looking like plastic dummies, I still applaud the effort put in.  Since the death scenes might be the only things in this movie that had any effort put into.

One of the worst aspects of this movie is that the majority of the characters had no background or connection to previous entries in the series.  Yes, they brought in most of the survivors of past movies for a few scenes, but this movie should have been more about them, while containing a more original plot.  Instead, we have to follow around Bobby.  Why the hell is newcomer Bobby the main character in the final movie of the series?!?  Who cares about him, or the singer of Linkin Park that appears in the junkyard game?  The one person who definitely belongs in it the most is Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), and he is in this film for maybe 5 minutes.  That is unacceptable, especially for the finale.  As hard as the writers have tried to make each movie connect, I was let down by the final product here.

Another disappointing thing about Saw 3D is the fact that the main killer, Hoffman, doesn’t really follow the Jigsaw recipe the entire movie.  He chooses random people to ‘test’ and most games are not survivable.  Plus, he turns into a Terminator towards the end and just slices and dices his way to Jill.  Also, the chase scenes through the hallways looked incredibly staged and extremely cheesy.  Decent slasher action, but Saw is not, and never was, a slasher movie. 

Another thing that bothered me is that most of the traps were pointless, even more than usual.  For instance, why was there a public ‘game’ at the beginning?  This was completely out of place and had no connection to the rest of the movie.  There seemed to be too much left unanswered for it to be considered a conclusion.  Unless there is another movie being planned down the line, in which case it might answer all the remaining questions.  But if that happened, it would be a cheap marketing move to lie to the public to get them to see the ‘final’ movie.  Just like how the Rolling Stones have been stealing people’s money by putting on ‘farewell’ tours every other year for the past decade.  I’m a believer in the idea that some things just need to die so they can be remembered for when they were still relevant and successful (I’m looking at you Mick).

Many of these negatives could be accounted to the fact the director didn’t even want to do this movie.  He wanted to do Paraboring Activity 2, but Lionsgate had a clause in his contract to do another movie, so he was dragged back a week before shooting!  Plus he tried to rework the script, blah blah blah.  Just seemed doomed from the beginning, which is sad knowing this is the conclusion to a legendary series.

In conclusion, the filmmakers could have done way better job here, being that this is the ‘final’ movie.  However, this movie was a lot better than Saw V and VI, but not as good as the first 4 movies.  Yet again, the 3D was a disappointing gimmick.  While some scenes involved body parts flying at the screen, it was mostly tacky and largely forgettable.  Overall, I recommend this movie to fans or anyone who has seen the others, mostly because Saw 3D does offer some closure on a few characters and story lines.  If you don't like any of the Saw movies and don't care how the series ends, don't feel bad about skipping it.  Besides some great traps and death scenes, the plot contains most of the same ole tricks and the end doesn't blow your mind, 3D or not.


Total Score:  5/10
Buckets:  4.5/5