Paw

Rating: 1/10 (24 October 2007)

Oh dear.
Firstly, I thought Saw to be a fantastic film. I'm not a fan of films who boast about torturing people, but the violence in Saw was kept to a minimum considering the circumstances - finally, a horror director who substituted blood and guts for a gripping storyline. The flashback story-telling device worked nicely, it was wonderfully written, and had a fantastic conclusion - one of the best I have seen. I then found Saw II to be a creditable film. It was totally different to the first instalment, and despite being much more violent, was also quite well written. Despite Jigsaw's traps edging towards the realms of total absurdity, the film overall was entertaining - and in these times I think its about as good a sequel as your going to get, especially for a serial killer idea such as this. Despite number 2's merits, I still wish they had just left it after the first one. But due to their ongoing success, they just couldn't let it go.
It seems Darren Lynn Bousman is contempt that if he thrusts a load of graphic violence in your face, he doesn't need a good script. Saw III opens with 20 minutes of torture scenes which are quite unnecessary. In the first 2 instalments, references to Jigsaw's previous traps were brief, and made for effective scenes. For the traps in Saw III, the makers have obviously ran out of ideas. They are now ridiculously unfair, and are totally stupid. How rich is Jigsaw? To get all these traps (and places to put them) he must be a multi-millionaire. The writers seem contempt to think about clever traps, and then ignore the plausibility of them. The only problem is - they aren't clever either. Traps now include getting drowned in pig juice. That's all I have to say on the matter.
The story contained some pretty stupid things. Despite their constant claiming that Jigsaw has good motives, he now has moved on to torturing innocent people. Most of the people he also targets to torture in this film, is basically for doing their job well. For instance, a homicide detective is targeted because she spends her time trying to figure out how people died - baffling stuff. Also, they try to make us sympathise with Jigsaw, with a scene with his presumably ex-wife. What the hell, the man is a sicko. That's the whole premise of his character. Don't try and make him human. Why must people try and ruin the most wonderful film villains? There are also numerous flashbacks to the previous films, which are just annoying, and proves the writers' have nothing fresh to add to the franchise.
To top the film off, they've once again they've gone for a twist ending - but this time they have 2. Saw's ending was superb, and Saw II's was acceptable, but both twists here were totally awful, and made no sense whatsoever.
One final criticism. The lighting. Okay, it's not a happy film, but a bit of light here and there wouldn't hurt would it. There is a scene between a "protagonist" and his kid in his house, and the place was shrouded in darkness. What the hell, you put the lights on at night-time.
I am sad to see that the Saw franchise has been influenced by Hostel it seems. They've taken away all that was good from the first film, and just turned it into a regulation horror flick that anyone could think of. Despite the fact both villains are supposedly dead, yet another sequel is about to be released. Will they ever learn? I would have given this a 4/5 if it wasn't for the dismal ending. Some of it wasn't that bad, although never enjoyable.