Some Useful Information for "Potential Viewers"

Rating: 3/10 (1 November 2006)

Now that the Halloween ritual is over, so is the only good reason to see "Saw III" at a theatre. So here are some observations for those reading these comments while trying to decide whether they should pay good money to see the movie.
First off look at the situation objectively, by its third installment the "Saw" franchise has become what the film industry refers to as a "pre-sold" product. This means that during the pre-production phase it was known that virtually anything released to theatres with the title "Saw III" will do substantial business. For those (including myself) who enjoyed the first two, it would be a much-anticipated Halloween ritual. We would purposely not read comments or reviews (or even view trailers) to insure a completely pure viewing experience. Our tickets were essentially sold before "Saw II" had closed at our local mega-plex.
Although these economics guaranteed the production of the third installment (and apparently a fourth one), they provide no incentive for producing a film worthy of the preceding two. The original entry had to be good or suffer a "direct to video" fate, and the second benefited from (but was not over-whelmed by) a more professional production process because of its higher budget. In addition for the second one there was considerable incentive to prove that the first was not a lucky fluke.
Further red flags go up when you see that "Saw III" is using a "worldwide" saturation booking technique normally reserved for weaker blockbusters. This technique involves a lot of pre- release publicity and then opening it simultaneously in many theatres (3167 in the U.S. and thousands more worldwide). This is normally done with the goal of generating quick profits before bad reviews and word of mouth kill attendance. If a film is good it will be exhibited more discreetly because the producers are counting on positive "buzz" to promote attendance and reduce marketing costs.
Finally, the critics have overwhelmingly trashed "Saw III", even those who were extremely positive about the first two.
So as a potential (not a pre-sold viewer), you get on this site and sift through the comments to try to get a handle on the quality of the film while avoiding major spoilers; and you find an extremely divergent set of comments. My advice is to dig a little deeper into the source of the comments, click to see the comment history of each author. It is generally a good idea to give more weight to the more prolific writers-especially those whose comments about other films mirror your reactions.
In the case of "Saw III", the extremely positive (and least detailed) comments on the IMDb are almost exclusively from people for whom this is their first comment. If this seems extremely odd and if you are into conspiracy theories, you should at least consider the possibility that these are planted as part of the film's marketing campaign.
As for myself, I cannot imagine anyone who has not seen the first two films getting much enjoyment out to the third. Although there were times during the viewing process where I wished I was in this group because at least the confusion would have provided some degree of mental challenge during what turned out (IMHO) to be an extremely boring feature.
Nor would I expect anyone who did not get off on blood and gore to find this an enjoyable experience. The "Saw" films are in the horror sub-genre made famous by Dario Argneto and Mario Bava. This is called the "gialli" (yellow) style. These two Italian makers of horror/ thrillers place a huge emphasis on the deed of murder whereas other styles emphasize the solving of the murder. Inherent in this style is almost constant self- parody, necessary to expand the target audience beyond the wiggers and drones who flock to the local mall. The parody element fundamental to the first two installments is in short supply in "Saw III", deliberately inserted into only one scene-the pig rendering trap.
Checking my watch every ten minutes I kept hoping that something would happen to give an interesting tilt to what I had already seen, as had happened in the first two. But by the midway point I had abandoned this (not the checking of my watch but the expectation that any magician could pull a rabbit out of this lame hat).
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.