Review: Saw III
I’ve always considered Saw a trilogy, because of how this one ends it only makes sense, and while not as good as the first one it’s about on par with the second which I enjoy so I liked this one as well. It’s got a good narrative and some brilliantly flawed characters mixed in with some of the most gruesome moments in the franchise (so far).
The plot does feel a little divided, there’s two plots going on at once, now that’s always been the case with the Saw films but this one feels more stretched than the previous two. It’s not a bad move and it all comes together at the end but it’s noticeable. On one side we have Lynn, a doctor who is kidnapped by Amanda to help look after a dying John, while reluctantly helping, Amanda’s jealously and emotional nature get the better of her.
On the other side we have Jeff, a man so filled with hate and vengeance over the death of his son that it’s made him depressed and emotionally broken. That is until Jigsaw kidnaps him and gives him a chance for forgiveness, or revenge.
Honestly, despite being broken up between the two stories, the Jeff storyline is exactly the kind of shit the Saw needs, an emotional storyline about loss and vengeance and how it affects the way we act. I really liked it, the series might be known for it’s gore more than anything else but that plot was amazing.
The acting was pretty good as well, Lynn isn’t the most interesting character but she’s likeable enough, the other three fare much better. John is still the same man he was in the other two films, convinced he’s doing the right thing, that he isn’t a murderer and it’s hard to argue with him, he does raise a lot of good points, about his work and himself.
Amanda also returns, again working for Jigsaw but because of his illness she’s doing a lot of work on her own. It’s here that we see the flaw in Jigsaw’s plan, his mythology works but the means to convey it doesn’t meaning that Amanda doesn’t follow his message and is a lot crueller and unfair to her victims. It’s her emotions that get in the way and it’s her emotions that ruin the game.
Jeff though, man Jeff is something else. A man so focused on revenge that it consumes him, he’s the perfect subject for one of Jigsaw’s test. Jeff is such a flawed character that he can’t make the decisions on his own, he focuses purely on getting even to the point where he’s just as bad as the killers that have trapped him. His thirst for vengeance goes so deep that it ruins him in the end.
Darren Lynn Bousman returns as director, again he doesn’t do as good as job as Wan did on the first one but he’s did well in the last film so he obviously knows what he’s doing. The typical Saw stuff is here, the ultra quick editing, the fast cuts, the manic camera, I’ve come to accept these as traits of the series, like I’ve said in the reviews for the last two films, these films are for the MTV Generation, the ones that never had NOES of F13 and they work. Also, maybe it’s the fact that I’m watching these films so close together with a critical eye, but every time I hear that theme song start to play I get excited because it’s a fuckin great theme for this series.
Bousman fixes one of the problems I had with the last film and makes it slower, more focussed on the one character of Jeff instead of the whole heap of them in the last film. However fix one problem and there’s another to complain about, I didn’t like the fact that they should the outcome of the previous two films, I felt that the ambiguous nature of them both fit really well and while it did show the depth of John and Amanda’s relationship I could’ve done without it.
Finally the traps, I thought the traps here were really well devised, Amanda’s unfair traps were good, the chains were more uncomfortable than anything else but the rib-splitter made up for it with it’s gruesome outcome. The other traps were original and damn impressive, the shotgun collar linked to the heart rate monitor made for some tense scenes, the pig liquidiser was gross but it’s an interesting way to drown someone, and the rack, that shit was just painful to watch. Good stuff.
Overall, I liked this film, the plotline was great as was the character of Jeff, John and Amanda played well off each other and the gore, while gruesome - I completely forgot to mention the brain surgery, that was hard to watch - wasn’t over the top. It’s a good film and fans of the series will enjoy it. I did.
7.5/10