Suffering...you still haven't seen anything yet.

Rating: 7/10 (6 November 2006)

Anyone who's familiar with the SAW franchise will know what the other two are about, and so I'm not going to bother giving a synopsis of the first two. Part three of the franchise reunites us with a now bed ridden Jigsaw and a borderline psychotic Amanda.
In Jigsaw's newest game, a doctor is kidnapped and forced to keep him alive and play his twisted game as a man named Jeff trails through the path of those responsible for the murder of his son.
The film is entertaining, gory and more of a thriller. This particular installment is very emotional, intense and loaded with plot twists. Unfortunately, those plot twists happen all at the same time and so the audience gets hit with what feels like a ton of bricks.
I don't want to give away very many spoilers, but the film has too many flaws in it. For starters, most of the traps seem too complicated to be set up by one person alone. It's not believable that Amanda could have set up these traps all by herself.
Second, why is Jigsaw now bedridden? He was fine in the first two films (notwithstanding his cancer), but in this film, he's on his deathbed. And anyone as ill as Jigsaw is wouldn't spend their last few moments planning a way to torture people and "play games".
Another problem is the character of Amanda herself. In part two, we learn that she's the apprentice (and damn good too!), but in this one, we learn that she sucks and deserves to die. The transition from respecting Amanda in the second film to "die Amanda die" in the third is rushed (we would expect that such a transition wouldn't occur until after a few later films).
We hadn't even begun to see her develop into this role of being the apprentice and she's already killed off. Too fast, too soon. And throughout the film, poor Amanda is confused; she kills hardcore, but as she does it, she weeps. Her weeping is in contrast to the other times where she takes pleasure in threatening to kill others.
One of the most recognizable quotes from the film is, "Suffering...you haven't seen anything yet." Shortly after the bed ridden Jigsaw delivers these lines, his throat gets cut. What horrible injustice to Jigsaws words - he lied!
The film has more problems than not, but for the sake of time and not nitpicking, I'll just say that with SAW IV, the crew should take a little more time to re-examine their choices, be a little creative, take risks and produce something new. Maybe even divulge into that back story with Jigsaw in love with that sexy beauty he was dreaming about. The script of part III was too similar in form to the previous two installments.
To conclude, was the film good? Yes. Great? Not really. The best film out there currently? No. The most fulfilling of the trilogy? I don't think so, but still worthy of a high rating. 7/10