I wasn't disappointed because I didn't expect much, but that doesn't mean you should expect much either

Rating: 2/10 (10 January 2009)

It goes like this, either you somehow go for the Saw series' lot of super-duper camera tricks, its ever-so intricate plots and killing schemes, and the whole "game"-ness of how the Jigsaw killer goes about his schemes and how the filmmakers create these bags of horror-movie gimmicks, or you don't. I don't. It's that simple. But somehow, even after watching and finding the first Saw movie to be one of the most idiotic horror movie clap-traps of the decade, I got drawn into this third part of the series (a friend filled in whatever convoluted gaps there were to fill, or whatever wasn't too damn confusing with the myriad of flashbacks, from part 2) just to see how stupid it could possibly get. This is a film directed at best with some professionalism and at worst like an epileptic marsupial who doesn't know how to let go of the color filters and the "SO SCARY" editing touches like flashes and quick cuts that are more likely to make us go into seizure than frighten us.
Let's face facts too, Jigsaw's entire plot here is about the most hackneyed ideal of redemption that can be possible in modern movies. He kidnaps a man and his wife (who, of course, happen to have a dysfunctional relationship) or other, places them in a mousetrap-style maze of hazards and booby-traps and notes left with guns and gigantic limb-twisting thingamabobs, and then big choices have to be made like if to save a man's life it's worth getting shot in the head by a trigger hooked up to a switch. Or something. There's also a brain tumor subplot with Jigsaw, as he has one and has his assistant or daughter or whatever drill into his head to remove it.
In short, there are a lot of things that happen in Saw III, and they all amount to material that, more or less, appears like the image provided by a scene where a 'victim' is tied and sprayed by an onslaught of shredded hogs. How much of this can we take? Basically, the big problem this time around is not so much that all of the acting is terrible (though a lot of it is like from Shawnee Smith, even a somewhat skillful actor like Tobin Bell is reduced to monologuing from one spot and dribbling silly in his seat), or that the cinematography is over-saturated and made to look like washed-out pair of hippie jeans (though it is, with some exceptions), but with its attitude.
This is the Saw that tries and makes us "think" or at least come away with seeing something that, supposedly, deals with guilt and grief and natural human flaws as if in the realm of Biblical proportional philosophy. It's all about Jigsaw making the audience, as much as the people who tortures and kills, see the error of their ways as he rots away with his lovable old brain wart... not before, of course, making sure if he goes someone's head explodes to boot.
It's also an excuse for a lot of irredeemable blood-letting, limb-tearing, head-blasting, and gut-churning that is just there for not much reason except for the fetishists for this kind of stuff (or, for that matter, those who appreciate it ironically, if that's possible). I wish there could be something else to this, or for that matter be scary or thought provoking. What it really is, in the end, is trash masquerading as a deep tale of revenge and other soap-opera tricks. And did I mention the flashbacks, like every other minute, taking up almost more than half of the running time? Couldn't they even get Donnie Wahlberg for more than one incredibly (unitentionally) funny scene with his torn feet beating a woman's head against a wall? Yikes against me for watching it and, hopefully, yikes against you too.