Out with the mind games, in with the gore...

Rating: 4/10 (29 January 2011)

I remember seeing the first movie, walking out and thinking, "wow, what a great horror movie. It had both story and good thrills!" The second one, I thought, still not the worst story, but the gore contributed positively to the movie and still made another great horror film. Saw 3....made for the money. I thought the traps in the film weren't as deep and didn't have as much meaning as the first two films. All this movie really did was kill person after person and move on, which is your typical slasher flick that no one gets surprised from. The original story portrayed in the first movie is lost and misplayed and loses out to torturing and watching people suffer. Darren Lynn Bousman, who directed Saw 2 and did it very well, tried to keep the same style with Saw 3, but it ran out of magic here. Bousman wants to keep a dark atmosphere with suspenseful music in the background while the gore piles on, but there is no story to back him up, so the formula fails. In fact, anything that tries to show substance ends up failing, either due to the screenplay or due to Bousman's formula. Jigsaw as a character is still written well, with James Wan and Leigh Whannell still getting credit for sticking with the franchise, but it's the rest that doesn't merit my attention. Saw 3 doesn't capitalize on what Saw 2 did well, gore and story, but Jigsaw continues to be a thrilling character who whenever he says something, it catches the audiences' eye. The traps are gory, but they are unbelievable and one must wonder how these elaborate schemes actually continue to thrill the viewer. Everything seems to just be available for Jigsaw/Amanda to make a ultra scene, like the Judge pig trap, where somehow a whole bunch of pig liquid is just...available and ready. It doesn't make sense. Also, although Jigsaw is still written great as a character, the lines of wisdom and "life is precious" get repetitive and annoying. Overall, although there are still scenes that will make you cringe, such as a brain surgery scene, heads exploding, or rib cages being pulled open, this movie is just a shadow of what once was a thoughtful franchise, and the premise of a million mediocre movies to come.