Saw 3D review

Saw 3D (18, 90 mins)
Director: Kevin Greutert
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Considering the star attraction of the Saw franchise, Tobin Bell’s Jigsaw, was killed off at the end of Saw III, the plot contortions necessary to allow Bell to appear in the subsequent outings have become increasingly farcical in the years since. Sensibly, he barely appears in this reportedly final entry, but given how dull every other character in the movie is, you actually kinda miss him after a while.

It’s a Saw film and, as such, it’s no better and no worse than the largely indistinguishable previous four entries in the franchise. The days of the inventive and original original, and the fairly watchable first sequel are long gone.

The only reason the Saws still exist is for another round of rusty clockwork contraptions to rip someone’s jaw apart or send spikes into throats and eyeballs. As usual, gorehounds will feel in no way short changed, with blood flowing like half price wine and buckets of flying flesh. Typically though, the 3D adds absolutely nothing, save to make the image even darker than it already was. Appalling acting across the board and rampant idiocy are a given.

After a completely unconnected and irrelevant prologue in which three people are shown trapped in a Jigsaw device in full public view, we move on to the main thrust of the story, which concerns Bobby (young Indiana Jones himself, Sean Patrick Flanery), who has made a nice living from the book and talk show circuit by his supposed status as a Jigsaw survivor. But he’s no such thing, and is brought in to Jigsaw’s game to show him the error of his ways.

Meanwhile Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor), who some time ago was revealed as Jigsaw’s accomplice, is out for revenge against Jill, Jigsaw’s wife, who left him for dead at the end of Saw VI (if memory serves). It’s entirely possible that if you sat and watched all seven Saw movies back to back, this may all make some kind of sense, but in such an endeavour madness surely lies.

So while the cops look for Hoffman, Bobby negotiates Jigsaw’s traps to try to save his wife. To take things full circle, Cary Elwes from the original returns. And if you can’t work out the series’ ultimate gambit from that piece of information alone, well then you're even more stupid than the makers of this thing.