Movie Review: Jigsaw

Jigsaw ** / *****

Directed by: Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig.

Written by: Pete Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg.

Starring: Matt Passmore (Logan Nelson), Tobin Bell (Jigsaw / John Kramer), Callum Keith Rennie (Detective Halloran), Hannah Emily Anderson (Eleanor Bonneville), Clé Bennett (Detective Keith Hunt), Laura Vandervoort (Anna), Paul Braunstein (Ryan), Mandela Van Peebles (Mitch), Brittany Allen (Carly), Josiah Black (Edgar Munsen).

 

The Saw franchise was an annual Halloween tradition between 2004 and 2010 – every year, releasing a new film, in which the killer known as Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) devises new games and new traps for his victims to play, which they more often than not lost, and ended up in bloody messes on the floor – this despite the fact that Jigsaw dies fairly early in the series. The original saw – directed by James Wan – had a simplicity to it that really does make it the best of the series, and is also the least gruesome of the bunch (the other installments can properly be classified as torture porn – I don’t think the original can). Looking at my database of movies, I noticed I gave up on the Saw franchise after 6 installments – which seems like an odd thing for me to do, considering the 7^th had the subtitle of The Final Chapter – you’d think I’d stick it out for one final movie, but no – I had had enough. And yet, I found myself oddly looking forward to Jigsaw – a kind of prequel/sequel/reboot of the franchise – probably because having not watched or much thought about the series since 2010, I wanted to see what the filmmaker had in store. After all, if they were reviving the franchise after all that time, you’d think they’d have something pretty special up their sleeve.

 

Unfortunately they really don’t. Jigsaw is hardly an awful movie – and yes, for the sick minded out there, it does offer some nifty traps that slice and dice, and other dispose of the victims in the film in bloody and gruesome ways. Yet, I cannot help but wonder if this really is the best they could come up with in their desperate attempt to revive the once insanely profitable series. The convoluted Jigsaw backstory (Britt Hayes does a great rundown of it at Screencrush if you’re interested) gets even more convoluted in this installment – mostly in ways that make little to no sense. Then again, the backstory in these movies was always just a way to further screw with the audience a little – and to setup the next film, because the series kept writing itself into corners (probably deliberately) that they had to find a way out of.

 

But more disappointing is that the games themselves (which I won’t spoil here) don’t seem to really be playing fair with the victims. Remember, Jigsaw did get mad at protégé Amanda in the original series at some point, because she was building unwinnable games, and that didn’t jive with his sense of fairness. More than once in Jigsaw did I find myself thinking that various characters were never really given a chance to win their games – and if that’s the case, what’s the point.

 

Also, the film follows what the original series always did – and always bugged me – in that it follows the investigations by the police and those around them (the main character here is actually a coroner) trying to figure out the game going on – and always, of course, being somehow involved themselves. These scenes were always my least favorite part of the Saw series – and unfortunately they take up way too much time in Jigsaw.

 

Now, if you’re a Saw superfan, you’ll probably like this. It doesn’t have the brutal simplicity of the first film – and didn’t completely gross me out like the best of the sequels – but it mainly delivers what fans of the Saw series apparently liked enough to make 7 movies profitable last decade. Then again, there is a reason they stopped making them as well, isn’t there?