Saw III

I have mentioned before my fondness for the Saw series, and was pleasantly surprised by Saw II when it was released last year. Well here we are, 12 months on and another sequel has emerged more blood-soaked than the other two put together, but lacking in ideas and hopefully the last of these films in their current format. Taking place directly after the events of Saw II this iteration on the series sees Jigsaw, bedridden and dying kidnap, with help from his assistant Amanda, a doctor to help keep him alive long enough to see another of his victims complete his final game. As a set up it works quite well, seeing Jigsaw in this state though, while interesting, robs him of a lot of his malice and while he is still a great character, his mightier-than-thou attitude and justification for his challenges grow ever more repugnant. His claims of setting people free from their lives do not ring true and as a lot of the focus of the film turns to Amanda leaving these areas unexplored. Now Amanda is one of the main problems I had with the film, I’m not sure exactly what it is but she is not a very interesting character to me and the actress who plays her obviously feels the need to go borderline psychotic in every scene making her appear unhinged, but lacking the depth of her mentor. But in the same way it is a brave decision to show the master-apprentice relationship in this way crumbling and full of miscommunication with Amanda failing to grasp her tutor’s lofty ideals. The rest of the film is solid however, the performances are generally better than before and the puzzles certainly more gruesome and twisted. I don’t consider myself squeamish but there are several sections of the film that had me cringing and the set design and look of the film is as dingy and industrial as ever suiting the mood. The film is still a cut above your average horror fare with a tight storyline, though the way the two separate plots come together is somehow less satisfying than in the other films, like the filmmakers felt the need to better themselves each time rather than expanding the ideas. Saw III will satisfy those who enjoyed the first two films but the hyper-kinetic editing wears thin this time round and it feels as if elements of character and plot are lost amid the gore. The Saw style of horror films has been much copied and maybe that’s why elements of the film feel old fashioned now, let’s hope that if the series is to continue that the makers find some new and different ways of playing their sick and twisted games. A gruesome and tightly wound thriller that strays rather to closely to formula and, whilst it has some good ideas, remains less intriguing and more ambivilous than the other films sticking rather too closely to formula.