Good but not great final part of the Saw trilogy

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2006)

Picking up where Saw II left off this, the final part of the trilogy is both; the most disappointing and the most nihilistic, sadistic and gory of the three films. There are just far too many superfluous scenes. The first fifteen minutes of the movie could be cut out and it would have no impact whatsoever on the storyline of the movie and come across as gratuitous. That was one of the things I liked so much about Saw and Saw II, everything you saw whether it was exposition or scenes of carnage it all had a point in terms of the story as a whole whereas with this film there are some bits that make you think the writers came up with, admittedly superb scenes but then had no real way to work them into the plot and make them a part of it. Unfortunately as good, albeit gruesome as these scenes are they do feel rather tacked on and slow the film down. Indeed this is the slowest paced of the trilogy.
The acting quality varies in this film. Tobin Bell is fine as Jigsaw although he doesn't really have much to do. Shawnee Smith is superb as the unhinged Amanda and provides the films real energy. Angus Macfadyen's Jeff is full of rage but fairly one dimensional and is such an unlikable hero that to be honest you never really care for him at all. The weakest link in the acting stakes is Bahar Soomekh. I just never found her convincing and unlike Macfadyen whose character worked as a one note performance hers needed to be stronger, seeing as she was sharing some quite charged scenes with the two killers.
The games in this film are by far the most elaborate and I think the most sadistic. They are also by far the most graphic when they destroy the participant showing a very visceral disembowelment and with my personal favourite (and Jigsaw's too) turning a human beings limbs around 360 degrees in one of the most horrible scenes, think lots of snapping sounds and bones ripping through flesh and you get the idea (it was called The Rack). There is also some quite graphic DIY brain surgery which is quite nauseating.
So is the film any good? Yes it is. It does continue the story of Jigsaw and Amanda and brings it to a decent conclusion, still managing to pack in enough twists and turns and gore for fans of this sort of film. However given the high standard set by Saw and the surprisingly good sequel Saw II I was expecting more from this film and have to say that although good it didn't really enthral me as much as the first two films. It didn't really show me anything new, so from that point of view it was a very disappointing film. All in all this is very much the 'Return of the Jedi' of the Saw trilogy, it's good, it's entertaining and it ends the story nicely but you can't help thinking that it should and maybe could have been better.