Saw 3D: The Final Chapter

Okay, lets say you have the biggest horror franchise of the 21st century, an epic series of complex inter-connecting episodes filled nearly consistently with great twist endings:  how do you end it?  What movie could you possibly make to be a proper send-off to this franchise?  What could be the perfect "Saw VII"?  Well, whatever you think up, it sure will be better than "Saw 3D".  Because this movie sucks.  It sucks as a finale to the series, it sucks as a "Saw" sequel, and it sucks as a horror movie in general.

Come on, Twisted Pictures, is this really how you're going to end this franchise?  This is the best you got?  You really couldn't come up with a single idea better than this?  I was hoping for a twist beyond twists:  a final curtain fall that would completely smash every perception I've had about this series since the beginning:  something that could make all these many years of loyal filmgoing to - let's face it - not very good movies anymore, worthwhile.  There's nothing about "Saw 3D" that is at all a finale to this franchise.  It is no way more epic or conclusive than anything we've seen before.  Basically this movie just goes through the same motions that the last ones have - total rehash.  And even with a formula that's getting so stale these days you might break a tooth taking a bite, it could have been done better.  If this was just a regular sequel, it would have been the worst sequel by far.  The kills are weak, the plot is a mess, and the final twist is lame.  I get the feeling this was never actually intended to be the last one, instead they realized that this movie was so bad it was going to kill the franchise one way or another, so you might as well make it the last one.  From start to finish this movie is a disaster.

I figured that since the "Saw" movies have always been surprisingly clever for a horror movie, they might have at least tried for the grand finale.  Don't they care about what they're doing anymore?  Don't they have any love for this craft?  Or is this whole movie just a cry for help?  "We've been doing these "Saw" movies for like a decade now, please God, we are so out of ideas, save us!"  This is a disgrace.

I'm annoyed, so expect spoilers all over the place here.  I'm just gonna give it all away, because I don't want you people to see this.  Nobody should see a movie like this.  Its like seeing a beloved relative on his death bed.  Can we remember "Saw" for the good times it had, instead of the awful nonsense its become?

I knew this movie was going to suck from the very first scene.  The first trap is that two guys have to kill each other with buzzsaws in order to save some chick that's been double-timing the both of them, or else she dies.  Of course, bizarrely, this trap actually is happening in a store front in a middle of a crowded square in whatever city this is supposed to be happening in.  So already this feels really weird because the whole point is that you're supposed to be alone in a dark dungeon being "tested" to prove your will to live.  This whole scene feels off, and I was certain it was actually a joke.  Like by the end of the scene you'd find out this was just some kind of sick performance art.  The actors and the script here does not help me believe any of this crap.  Its hokey over-the-top soap opera-level acting here.  So then the scene ends in a properly gory conclusion and its never referenced again ever.  What was this?  A dream sequence (which there actually is in this movie, and it happens to use the coolest-looking trap from the trailer)?  Already from minute one, I was out of this movie.  All I could do is sit back and laugh at how utterly corn-ball everything has become.

The entire facade of this series has truly come crashing down.  Once upon a time these movies tried to trick you by having film actually take place simultaneously with other films, mess with the narrative sequence, and have characters suddenly shift sides without warning.  There's no attempt here.  There is a last twist, but its so bad and so out of nowhere that... well, I'll leave that for last.

There are two plotlines going on simultaniously.  One involves a supposed survivor of Jigsaw who has written a book about his experience and is going on the talk show book-promo tour.  We've never seen this guy before*, so I immediately call bullshit on his survival (not helped by the fact the movie doesn't even give me a fake scene of him being tested for me to see).  No surprise, he's making it up, and the movie gives this away far too quickly.  There could have been great mystery as to why he's being tested, but they throw it away.  So along the way his entire publishing crew is killed in a giant funhouse just like we've seen in just about every one of these movies and then his final game is to save his wife.  All this could have just been any "Saw" movie, there's nothing special about it.  It doesn't even tie all that well in with the movie plotline - leading credence to the producer's claims that "Saw VII" and "Saw VIII" were combined to make this "Saw 3D" nonsense.

Plus, this doesn't even make too much sense in a narrative framework.  Why would he write a fake book about surviving a serial killer who is still out there killing?  At one point we get a flashback showing the first Jigsaw signing the book (in what is Tobin Bell's only scene), so we know this book has been out for years.  Also, what publisher lets a book rot on the shelves for a year before going on the talk show publicity tour?

This was a perfect moment to have Jon Stewart show up as the talkshow host.  "Saw" mixed with the "Daily Show", a combination made in heaven.  Imagine if Jon Stewart got tested too?  That would have made this the greatest move ever.

The final moment of this plotline is just horrible.  The writer guy has to go through a final test, the exact same one he made up, in order to save his wife from getting set on fire.  Unfortunately his test wasn't well-designed (I think) so even though he does what he's told, she still dies in a massive CG inferno.  At this point any facade that Jigsaw** had of just "testing" people and not killing them is out the window.  Its been nonsense for many sequels now, but this is the final straw.  He's a murderer, that's it.  Nothing special.  All these Jigsaw people need to be on death row.

Movie B, on the other hand, is Matt Hoffman, the second Jigsaw apprentice, having survived the last movie thanks to being a total badass, going after Jigsaw's wife, Jill.  She's gone to some Internal Affairs officer (who may or may not be the last detective still alive in this city thanks to Jigsaw) and spilled everything.  So Hoffman is out to kill her using an elaborate and ridiculous plan that involves killing racists, a robot machine gun, and the plot of Movie A as a distraction.  Hoffman, being as awesome as ever, goes completely Michael Myers in the police station ("Halloween V"!), finds Jill, and kills her using the iconic reverse beartrap.  Interestingly this was the first time that trap has ever worked, I think.  I believe you're supposed to root for Jill here, but God knows why.  She's working for Jigsaw as much as anybody else, and tried to kill Hoffman last movie because... I have no idea.  So screw her, she's not innocent.  She's not Laurie Strode.  The philosophy of this series has become so warped I have no idea which way is up anymore.

The whole facade of this series has collapsed, its become so bad that characters we're supposed to root for are just as evil as the psycho killers after them.  Its like for six movies now they've been building a house of cards.  For the first three, it was a good house.  For the fourth, it started to lean.  By the fifth, I thought it would over.  By the sixth, Hoffman was so badass at the climax that I thought the series might be able to pull it out, but still it was leaning seriously at that point.  Now with the seventh movie, they tried to add more cards, and what is left?  A giant pile of cards on the floor, it all fell down.  Now will somebody clean this up?

The 3D effects I think really are what killed this movie.  The 3D is bad, absolutely terrible.  It comes off like characters are standing in front of a green screen half the time.  I feel like, yes, there's depth between them and the background, but also like they're standing in difference universes.  The humans look like flat cutouts.  It all looks fake, really fake.  Somehow the most cutting edge film technology in all history has turned decent filmmaking into something I wouldn't be surprised to see in an FMV game.  "Saw" should not look like the mission briefings of "Command and Conquer: Red Alert"!  I wouldn't be surprised if I saw Hoffman start talking to Joseph Stalin.  Most of the 3D is really used for jump-scares, throwing intestines and blood and a hacksaw at the screen.  Of course, my eyes suck, so things don't pop out of the screen at me, so the whole effect is lost.  I started taking my glasses off at time hoping that maybe that would make the movie look better - and when it comes down to that, the movie is without a doubt a disaster.

Worse, half the traps just suck.  There was only like one or two traps that I really thought were clever.  One trap is so weak that I don't think it even could have killed anybody.  A character is stuck in a cage a few feet over some rather dull-looking metal spikes that are like a foot away from each other.  If you just carefully climbed down you could easily have dropped yourself without injury.  The rest were just silly - not helped by silly acting.  The police detective who hangs with Jill all movie is just hilarious.  He has lines like "I knew you were fucking crazy!  Don't talk to me like that, crazy."  And "Its a SAFE HOUSE.  Get it?  Safe!"  I was rolling in my seat in laughter.

Shouldn't a horror movie actually be scary at some point?

So I've been beating around this thing, so I guess I just have to get to it:  the final twist.  In this movie, Cary Elwes, Dr. Gordon from the first movie who has completely disappeared for five films, returns.  Turns out that he's actually been a secret third apprentice that nobody knew about.  Of course, I have no idea why Dr. Gordon joins with Jigsaw, he just randomly decided to go evil for no reason.  I guess he didn't care to find out if his family was safe or save Adam, the other guy from the first movie.  He simply lost his shit, and we're supposed to buy that characterization with just a two minute montage.  So Dr. Gordon's last mission is to kill whoever kills Jill.  (At this any pretext of tests or philosophies or what-not is out the window, nobody cares anymore.)  Jigsaw could have hired him to save Jill, but whatever.  There are plotholes everywhere here, as you can tell.  Dr. Gordon finds Hoffman and captures him with two other mystery apprentices*** and throws Hoffman into the bathroom from the first movie - just without a saw.  The movie's all coy about this too throwing the saw right in your face.  Door closed, GAME OVER for Hoffman, supposedly.  I guess he dies in there, and that's the ending.

One problem with this final scare:  its been done!  This was ending to "Saw II"!!

WHAT ARE THE FILMMAKERS STUPID???

I can't believe this.  They were trying to make the whole series go full circle, I can appreciate that, but still, they already did this.  You can't recycle a final scare!  Worse, in "Saw III", we find out that the first guy this happened to, Eric Matthews, escaped the room just by smashing his foot in to get out of the chain.  Considering who we're dealing with here, Mark Hoffman, an ultimate badass who has been through worse odds than this, I think he can escape.  This is how it ends??  Ass-pull Dr. Gordon and then have him make a weak final scare?  Come on!

Originally I was going to just call this movie "Saw VII", because that's what it is.  The seventh "Saw" movie.  I was going to make a joke about how all real horror fans know that you can only have 3D in the third installment ("Friday the 13th Part 3", "Amityville 3D", "Jaws 3D", "Piranha 3D"), and just call it "Saw VII" like I called "Predators" "Predator 3", but I won't do that here.  This movie doesn't deserve to be called "Saw VII", its that bad.

Even so, I'm done.  This is the end of the franchise - they said it right in the title.  They may not have stopped making "Friday the 13th" movies after "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" or "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday" but I hope they stop making "Saw" after this.  So if a "Saw VIII" decides to come along:  no.  NO no no no no no no no no no.  No I won't.  I will not see another one of these, unless I am very very drunk and never in theatres.  Its over.  Let's all go home.

Fanwank Corner:  An unofficial list of less stupid and considerably more awesome ideas for the final twist:

1. Jigsaw's final Test is a bomb that will blow up the entire planet.

2. Jigsaw comes back from the dead as a zombie ghost.

3. The final test is for Osama bin Ladin, and he loses by having a jumbo jet flown up his ass.

4. Hoffman builds a giant robot with the face of the Jigsaw puppet and starts attacking the city.  Then he fights Godzilla.

5. Jigsaw becomes the leader of a cult religion of masochism and the entire world descends into war.

6. "Saw VII:  the Musical"

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* At one point he goes to a Jigsaw Survivors AA meeting or something.  Within the crowd are exactly two people we've seen before.  Where are these other survivors coming from?  I know we've never seen any of these other people.  I mean, there are at least four people who have survived, I guess.  These random extras, what the Hell?  Are they all making it up too?

** I also don't know if John Kramer, the first Jigsaw, actually even planned any trap in this movie.  In "Saw VI" we knew it his revenge against evil health insurance companies, in every other movie we knew it was his plan either being implemented by him or his apprentices.  In this movie, I have no clue.  Just another place where it all falls apart.

*** Now who the Hell are these guys?  We never find out, because their faces are covered in masks.  This is just stupid now.  They're just inventing crap of thin air.