worst of the three?

Rating: 6/10 (5 November 2006)

I was so anxious to see this movie that I actually paid to watch it in the theatre rather than waiting for it to come out on DVD. The film had pretty much everything I expected: gore, gruesome traps, and a decent plot. But it didn't really have the surprise factor that made the first one so interesting. The third installment of Saw follows two main subplots. The first involves Dr. Lynn Denlon playing a game in which she must keep Jigsaw alive (he's not dead yet, just on his deathbed with cancer). The catch is she's wearing a shotgun collar that will kill her if Jigsaw dies or if she goes too far away from Jigsaw. The second subplot surrounds a man Jeff, who we learn lost his only son--he also has a daughter-- in a hit and run accident. Since the death of his son, Jeff has been obsessed with exacting revenge on the man who killed his son. Because of this, Jigsaw chooses him to complete a game I'll call "forgiveness v. punishment." In each phase of the game Jeff is presented with the opportunity to save (or if you will, forgive) someone who was involved in the death of his son (the only witness who fled the scene, the lenient judge, and finally his son's murderer). If Jeff completes his game successfully then the doctor will be allowed to go free. SPOILER:
In the meantime, the viewer learns that Jigsaw's protégé (Amanda) is actually just a bitch (seriously) and isn't really teaching people to appreciate life with her traps as Jigsaw does. In fact, the traps she creates are actually impossible to escape from. Overall, this movie made me cringe often (some of the traps and Jigsaw's partial brain removal were quite grisly) and for fans of disturbing horror movies I would definitely recommend it. Still, I was disappointed with the major plot twist (finding out that Jeff and the doctor are married) because in the beginning of the film you think that the doctor is married to the man she's actually having an affair with. In the opening scene he tells her that he wants a divorce, implying that they are married, but really he wants her to get a divorce from Jeff.