Saw III

"Hello Jeff. If you are listening to this, that means that the confrontation you so long dreamed of...is finally unfolding. In your head, he is a cipher. A symbol of your life changing. A symbol of death. I present him to you now, as a simple human being."
-Tobin Bell "Saw III"

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Released in 2006 under the returning direction of Darren Lynn Bousman distributed by Lionsgate on a budget of $10 million, "Saw III" was the third film of the saw series and the last one to have the original creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell involved in the writing process of this Saw franchise (well, Wan did co-write the Saw video game). I don't know the exact details, but I can probably imagine that Wan and Whannell were appalled by what a poor carbon copy "Saw II" was and decided that it was probably best to stop before this franchise got out of hand, hence why Bousman is not the writer this time but Wan and Whannell are. Don't think I wrote a typo because yes, this was supposed to be the LAST Saw film but, as we all well know, I'm not that lucky. Let the game begin and let's see how much this movie really wanted to stop.

Plot: The Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) is dying from cancer in his brain. In an attempt to save him, Jigsaw's apprentice Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) has kidnapped emotionally distressed doctor Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomkeh) to perform surgery on his brain to remove the cancer, or else a collar placed around her neck will detonate, blowing her head off. Meanwhile, her depression-stricken husband Jeff Denlon (Angus Macfadyen) must undergo a series of tests where he confronts the people responsible for the death of his son; the witness who saw it, the judge who sentenced it and the man who killed his son. As he undergoes these tests, he must overcome his vengeance and his hate and learn to forgive these people and let his pain go or else, everything he loves will be destroyed. Will Jeff succeed and can Lynn properly save Jigsaw to keep her alive? Either way, somebody's getting a buzz saw to the neck.

I previously described "Saw II" as being a cold carbon copy of the first one, clearly, James Wan and Leigh Whannell wanted to do something completely different here and thankfully, they succeed, for the most part. I admit, on the surface, it's no different than the last two films, involving a prisoner trapped in this building where they go past traps, people get killed, the cops look over the scenes of the people that died and run into a twist ending. Yep, mm, yeah.
What makes this different than the last is that there is a central focus to it all. Jeff is being forced to look at his life of hating everyone he blamed for his son's death and asking him to let it go. The film makes it clear to establish that this couple is suffering- oh wait, I forgot; they wait at least a half hour to show us detectives looking at a victim who died a horrible death and then this one character they brought in from the last movie gets placed in a trap that doesn't even make sense HOW anyone could escape from it (hooks put into your ribcage, this and you expect a key to be the only way to get out of it in the short amount of time?) is just proof that they wanted an excuse just to kill people for the gore hounds. It's after those 30 minutes does the film finally bring the real characters that we follow. Is it as clever as the first "Saw"though? Not really, but it's such a breath of fresh air to see the film take a different change of pace than "Saw II" and it's attitude towards forgiveness over vengeance I find to be a neat idea, but not explored as well as I would have liked for it to be. Still, I'm happy I got something different this time around.

Characters:

Tobin Bell: I think I can finally see what Tobin Bell is trying to do here. I believe Tobin is trying to channel Hannibal Lector, something that he sorta did in the last film and he kinda channels this calm and intelligent serial killer but shows more mortality than he did in the last film. In the last film, even if her was killed, he still had everything under control. Here, it defiantly feels like he is living on borrowed time and he is truly not in control. Amanda's paranoid distrust and Jeff's unpredictability really shows his life barely holding onto a thread. We even get a brief moment where we get to see a loved one in his life; moments like that make this Hannibal Lector-wannabe more human, but also further distances the scariness of this killer.

Angus Macfadyen: Jeff is a complete asshole! Right from when we are introduced to him, I felt no sympathy for him, no support for him to overcome his tests, nothing. It's established that he's suffering from depression because of the death of his son, but he takes it out on his daughter after she takes ONE little bunny doll from her deceased brother's room and her father, while carrying a gun no less, barges in and berates her for taking the doll. Oh but it gets worse. When he's given the chance to save the people who were, not directly, responsible for his son's death, he just mocks them for being cowards and for letting his son's killer get away. HE MOCKS THEM!! Feeling bad for this jerk is impossible when he makes it so hard to feel bad for him when he is willing to let them die. Well, he does have a change of heart and tries to save them, but by the time he's decided to save the first victim, she's already dead. He manages to save the judge guy, but he barely survives for long. When he finally does meet the killer of his son, he also f*cking hesitates to do anything while the trap becomes active. You can argue it's because of the bitterness he pent up for years hating the people responsible for his son's death. If that's the case, why then does he take out his anger on Jigsaw at then end, who had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEATH OF HIS SON!!!! Sure his wife gets injured and Jigsaw WILLINGLY offers to call 911 to save her, but nope, he still gets pissed at Jigsaw and just slaps his hand away. Oh my Lord, I hate this guy! It's impossible to care about him and his plight when he is such a schmuck to everyone around him.

Everyone else is, once again, hit or miss but they fail to leave much of an impact. Soomkeh is all right. She was the only sensible one in this Goddamned movie. Smith was just obnoxious, the people in the traps were the usual screaming and wailing "Oh God please get me out of here!" sort of pathetic. Nothing much lost and nothing much gained from the performances...

Production: Remember when I described how the last film felt the need to show off it's budget and kill someone off immediately? Well, this film opens up with that rude idiot cop from the last film breaking his foot. I don't see why since he kinda got what he deserved if you ask me, I don't see why you have to show what happened to him outside of just making this thin bridging between this and the last film since they are practically never brought up again except with this one flashback and this female detective who gets caught in one of Jigsaw's traps and gets killed off in an over the top brutal way. Just like before, the traps themselves resemble things that can be made out of everyday items. But these traps continue to be a little too elaborate to have been made by one guy. The ribcage trap looked way too advanced for a dying old man to have made if you ask me. Also, the first trap with this Trent guy just seemed like a random excuse just to show off gore, guess what, doesn't affect the plot whatsoever. Yep, just like the last movie where the opening trap had no real emphasis on the plot and was never brought up again, well, same here.

First two traps of this film have no real emphasis not he plot other than to get rid of this character we already forgot from the last film as well as to show off it's budget with the blood and gore. If anything, I do have to praise the makeup effects for this really cringe-worthy scene where Lynn performs an operation on Jigsaw and she opens his head to relieve pressure in his head and she uses a drill and a buzz saw to cut up a section of his skull. It's brutal and it makes you squirm and, best part, it's integral to the plot. I would have preferred it if they had just used the sound effects to get the idea across and let your mind create the image but, eh, who am I to judge?

Music is, once again, a mixture of industrial music to fit with the industrial feel of the factory the majority of the test is set up in as well as songs from other artists, like "Guarded" by Disturbed, "Walk with Me in Hell" by Lamb of God, "The Wolf is Loose" by Mastadon and "Burn it Down" by Avenged Sevenfold. While I'm a proud metal-head, I have to admit some of these songs felt really out of place at times and the use of songs from popular metal artists as just another excuse to show off it's budget.
If anything, the production has done it's job. But I can't help but miss the "less is more" concept that Wan and Whannel used in the first film. If you prefer bigger budgets, then that's your call.

Bottom Line: This wasn't the breath of fresh air that I expected it to be, while I'm glad that it played out a totally new concept of forgiveness over vengeance, I felt it wasn't explored as deeply than it could have. This comes at the fault of the actor playing Jeff, who makes him come off as a complete twat instead of a guy that we can root for. Jigsaw is still interesting, but he's no longer menacing or scary but still far more sympathetic than Jeff or Amanda, you even reach a point where you find yourself agreeing that people should die or wait, is that just me wishing they would all die just so the movie could end sooner? hmm.

While I still prefer the original one, while this one is considerably better than the last one, it suffers from the sins of the previous one by giving us a character we don't feel any sympathy for and the reason for his rude behavior only make shim out to be a complete douche instead of an average joe that we should root for. The gore is still a spectacle to watch and they upped it again for the gore hounds, which might appeal to the sick-minded but I still prefer the "less is more" technique applied to the original. This should have been the real follow-up to the first "Saw," it still continues the metaphorical symbolism of the traps but this time gives a focus instead of being random. It's not too bad, but it's not amazing.

Final Rating: 3.5/5

Until next time, I'll continue to stoke the fire for when we burn through celluloid.