Back to Basics: Pain

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2006)

I've been waiting to see this movie since I left the theatre of the second Saw. We've all waited patiently for this and it's finally here. You could say I got my money's worth... but I wanted more.
Yes, it lived up to the original expectations of the first two Saws, and I'm happy with that. You will get most of what you expect or want from this movie if you compare it to the first two. After seeing it, I now wonder what they could do more if they continue production of this series. All those ideas of how to torture people must be hard to think of to make the audience cringe and creep as they watch, so it can't be that easy. What I truly wanted was a return of Dr. Gordon. That would be a good highlight, but unfortunately, they left him out and put other twists into it.
I mainly expected a twist, and yes we got it. It was a good one in fact. The characters blended to the style of writing and screenplay so that helped the movie a lot. I was also glad that there was more "games" in this movie than Saw II, where it was basically one big game. This one had a few random ones, and then one big one that set the mood for another. It went back to basics by telling unfinished business in the first two Saws, and we all needed that. A refresher can help us get into the movie better. They had a few of those, and that helped set the mood.
I was really happy to finally watch this movie, and I will buy it to complete my collection of Saws someday. No sequel of Saw will live up to it, and we shouldn't expect it to since it was new at that time. Anything from here on out will be "like the original", and that's fine. I will still watch them, but I won't love them as much as the first.