Call me crazy, but...

Rating: 4/10 (15 August 2005)

I'm really and honestly a bit in awe of this movie's high rating on the IMDb, especially in comparison to some other, and in my opinion, better horror movies. Sorry to say it, but I think this movie sucked, all the more so because I went with somewhat high hopes and because a very good thriller could have been made from this quite inventive and interesting scenario. Before everyone starts posting a bunch of worthless insults and saying I didn't get it or I don't know horror movies, let me just lay out some of my criticisms: Within the first five minutes I was chuckling at the acting and the lines. Whannel actually faired a little better against the more veteran Elwes, who was so over-emotive and so miscast I felt a bit sorry just having to watch him, unfortunate since I've liked him in other movies. The dialogue lacked really any kind of subtlety, and while I understand the necessity to introduce the killer through flashbacks and memories of reading the newspaper, the way it was done seemed so contrived it was like watching a puppetmaster pulling strings. It's a case of show vs. tell, I think. The dialogue seemed to be grudgingly forcing the plot along inch by inch rather than letting it develop.
Then we have the scenes involving the other victims: Was no one else annoyed by the sudden and jarring use of ultra fast MTV-motion and pointlessly loud music? I think these scenes would've been better played out much more slowly, wherein every second that passed becomes just that, one second closer to a horrifying death, one more ratchet of tension in which the audience could have felt the torment I'm sure the victims were. Something tells me those victims would have felt every second pass in those situations.
Danny Glover's character seemed to be a very unprofessional cop. Anyone involved in any aspect of investigation would know Dr. Gordon's pen appearing at the scene, while odd, is purely circumstantial, and not reason to start an obsessive and far from legal stalking of the guy. In this kind of case a cop would have relied much more on forensic data and psychological profiling. Yeah, I guess his mind snapped a little upon seeing his partner so brutally dispatched, but... I just didn't believe this character. Likewise to the wife and daughter, who were so underdeveloped, and whose only chances at development were robbed by Dr. Gordon's disdain or at least disregard for his family that I just didn't care what happened to them in the end, nor did I believe Dr. Gordon's sudden impulse to lop off his own leg in an attempt to save them.
Aside from these, there were just too many contrivances and errors along the way. How could Whannel have woken up submerged in water without having drowned? How would a medical doctor not recognize that the dead body on the floor was not dead? What did Jigsaw have against Zapp (name?), who was the only character who was interested in or kind to him? Could Dr. Gordon really not think of a better way to get that phone? Would that cell phone really work in that buried basement, and would it work only on the plot-dictated occurrences that it did? Why were Whannel and Elwes the only victims to have a long, drawn-out, two person situation? On the plus side, I do think the initial idea is quite inventive, and, although in retrospect the ending doesn't seem to add up logically, the finale of Saw does stick in my mind as being the one part I thought was really fairly well done. The image of Jigsaw standing up, his last look at Whannel, the implied but not shown final fates of our two main characters -- this whole sequence was quite tense and a really unexpected bit of icing on the cake after my expectations for the movie had dropped so low throughout the rest of the viewing. It just seems to me that a much better movie could have been made, the situation offers ample opportunity for a strongly character driven movie, while the outside situations could provide for sequences of unbearable tension, by a more seasoned and talented director of suspense with better dialoague at his disposal and the ability to elicit better performances from less miscast actors.
Tell me, am I really wrong in thinking it strange that this is the most talked about horror movie to come out in years... or has American horror just really gone so far down hill? And tell me also, what is it exactly that everyone saw in this movie that I didn't that sets it so far apart from all the other horror movies and thrillers of recent years? I really am quite curious.
"Toy-like people made me boy-like."