Movie Gab: Saw 3D
Goodness it's been a while. The past two weeks have been a little nuts on the social scale. I've been working on a special project (not writing, but writing related) and celebrating my aging multiple times with family and friends. My Stepfather also celebrated his aging Thursday night, where we went out for Ethiopian food (very tasty). It's a birthday tradition -- the celebrant chooses a restaurant and the three of us (me, my Mom and my Stepfather) feast. The only limitation is that Mom's a vegetarian, but a lot of places have plenty of options on the green side of things. We all know we'll regret over-eating, but it's a guilty pleasure we observe once a year...
Guilty pleasures. We all have them. It's a part of the human equation. When it comes to TV it was, for me, a season of The Apprentice and Steeler football. Actually the latter had morphed more into a genetically inherited addiction, but you get my point. With movies, my guilty pleasure was the Saw films.
I'll be honest when I say I was hooked on the first film. Didn't see it in theaters -- instead I saw it on DVD after a recommendation by my friend Grim Frightly. (And before you say anything, understand that this is the sort of friend for whom I'd take a mortar round to the face.) What impressed me about Saw is that at it's core it was meant to test people in a gruesome fashion to see if they had what it took to survive. I also thought that John Kramer, aka Jigsaw was one of the best antagonists I had seen in films of this nature. Here was a guy dying of cancer, botched an attempt at suicide and realized that his life had been fairly wasted. He seeks self redemption through the twisted redemption of others, hoping to teach them what value there is in life and not to waste it. It was an intriguing concept, and I can honestly say I didn't see the ending coming at all. Would I have predicted it now, knowing what I do about the craft of writing? Hard to say, but Saw is still one of my favorite films.
Then came the sequels.
As with any series of films that suffers from Incrementing Title Number Syndrome, the Saw series descends into what amounts to Trap/Torture porn. But still I stuck with it, mostly because of the traps. While they end up ranking along the level of a Wile E. Coyote contraption, the sinister nature of the trials still held an allure. By the time we reached Saw 3 I was ready for it to be over. Then came the next three movies, which I refer to as the "Legacy Trilogy."
Not much of a legacy though, but when you look at it, it's impressive that the series used a central antagonist -- the Jigsaw -- in several movies after he was dead without using the old resurrection trope as we saw with Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers. No supernatural boogeyman, our Jigsaw, no sir. Just a rival of Rube Goldberg. Even so, the exploration into the posthumous work of Jigsaw's disciple, Detective Hoffman, still kept things moving.
What gives the series a strength over other films of this ilk is that each film is not just some isolated episode. Instead there's an overall plot thread (thin as it may be) that ties all the films together. I have to be honest, however, in that I don't believe the master arc was some grand design. Nope, this film introduces movie-goers to a concept used in Spider Man 3 -- retconning.
If you're not familiar with the concept, I'll 'splain, using the previously mentioned (and atrocious) film as an example of doing it wrong. In the first Spidey flick, Peter Parker's kindly Uncle Ben is killed by a criminal he could have stopped with his super powers but didn't. In the third film, Peter learns that there was a second crook involved in Ben's murder, and later he learns that it was accidental. This was done to bring in Thomas Hayden Church as Sandman, and to make him a sympathetic antagonist. And like I said, it was done poorly.
The Saw series, on the other hand uses flashbacks effectively to play loose with the time line, and there's enough "between the lines," as it were, for the script writers to fill in. This was a case where retconning could work and -- more often than not -- did. As someone who hates both retcons and flashbacks, I was impressed with how they handled both.
But the films still lost their luster. I had hoped that Saw VI would be the last, but the fates laughed at me, saying, "No, you fool! We'll subject you to another film, claiming this is the last, and you'll go to it because you're a tool. Plus we'll make it 3D so you pay extra for the ticket."
And I am. And I did. So I guess I better start talking about the film.
The final chapter of this series involves Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Jill (Betsy Russell) -- Jill is Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) ex/widow, and she's somewhat involved in this whole game, although less directly. At least until the end of Saw VI when she puts the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 on Hoffman, who survives and escapes despite getting messed up by it.
So Jill flees to the police, specifically Detective Gibson (Chad Donella) of Internal Affairs, dropping Hoffman's name in hope of protection and immunity. Hoffman, like Jigsaw, is a skilled manipulator, so he sets a plan into motion so he can get Jill and extract his revenge. Meanwhile, self-help guru Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), a Jigsaw survivor, is doing a book tour/support group thing to help others in the wake of their trials. He's sneered at by Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes), whom we haven't seen since the first film, and later Bobby gets jacked by a Pigheaded Disciple and his trial begins. It turns out he hadn't been tested by the Jigsaw before, so this is his chance to redeem himself and possibly save the life of his wife, his lawyer, his publicist and his friend in the process.
You can pretty much tell how this is going to play out. It's gonna get messy.
Hoffman is no Jigsaw, that much was made certain in previous films. He's not a redeemer, he's a killer. In fact, thus far in the series, none of the Jigsaw's Disciples have been true to his vision. Hoffman's not even a willing Disciple, when you think of it... he was essentially blackmailed into this. Thus it comes as no surprise that his own personal body count only goes up in this film. Sadly, Hoffman gets his hands on Jill, and it's a damn shame because Betsy Russell is too hot for a trap of that nature (and off screen she's even hotter as a brunette -- wow!).
Again, there's a bit of retconning in this film, but flashbacks aren't used much at all. This installment chugs along with Hoffman at the helm, trying to tie up loose ends before he can disappear.
I had two major problems with this film. The first is with the 3D thing. I rolled my eyes when I saw the trailer. Honestly, that bit about bad guys and spiky bits coming straight at you OUT OF TEH SCREEN! was old back in the early days of 3D horror films. This trailer does not impress.
Neither did the 3D. It's main purpose was to have some spiky bits look like it was coming for you, along with extra-gratuitous gore to spatter in your general direction in the hopes that you might scream or even flinch. In my case, neither happened.
The other issue was the final trap/challenge in Bobby's story arc. It basically involves the mechanism by which Bobby claimed to have endured in the trap that never really happened, but this time it's to save his wife's life. He fails, but not through any fault of his own (unless you think he needed to do more bench presses or something), and the missus gets cooked until well done. My problem with this is that in previous films if an innocent is involved in one of Jigsaw's traps, they're never meant to be harmed by the ordeal. Such examples includes Dr. Gordon's wife and child (Saw), Eric Matthew's son Daniel (Saw II), Jeff's daughter (Saw III & V) and Pamela and a currently nameless mother and child (Saw VI). Whether this is through the efforts of the test's true recipient or by writer's fiat, the innocent are not killed.
Bobby's wife Joyce, unlike the other victims on his path to redemption, is truly innocent. She never knew that Bobby lied about being one of Jigsaw's victims -- also unlike the others. The three interim trials/tests involving guilty parties play on the "speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil" trope (in that order), so what evil does Joyce represent? None. Joyce is not to blame for Bobby's machinations to fame, so she suffers (and dies) needlessly at the end. Personally, I think the film would have been better served if Bobby succeeded at that final trial and rescued the one good thing in his life. At least one thread in this film could have ended on a positive note.
All things considered, this film does bring the whole Saw concept to a close, albeit not as satisfying an end to me as it could have been. That said, the film did give itself an "out" (albeit a small one) should someone choose to make an eighth movie. If that does happen (and I hope to God it doesn't), the series will have to continue without me. I'm done. It's over, and in my opinion it's four films overdue.
Next time... we'll either talk more on horror, the quantum nature of cats, or whatever else tickles my fancy. Stay tuned!
Guilty pleasures. We all have them. It's a part of the human equation. When it comes to TV it was, for me, a season of The Apprentice and Steeler football. Actually the latter had morphed more into a genetically inherited addiction, but you get my point. With movies, my guilty pleasure was the Saw films.
I'll be honest when I say I was hooked on the first film. Didn't see it in theaters -- instead I saw it on DVD after a recommendation by my friend Grim Frightly. (And before you say anything, understand that this is the sort of friend for whom I'd take a mortar round to the face.) What impressed me about Saw is that at it's core it was meant to test people in a gruesome fashion to see if they had what it took to survive. I also thought that John Kramer, aka Jigsaw was one of the best antagonists I had seen in films of this nature. Here was a guy dying of cancer, botched an attempt at suicide and realized that his life had been fairly wasted. He seeks self redemption through the twisted redemption of others, hoping to teach them what value there is in life and not to waste it. It was an intriguing concept, and I can honestly say I didn't see the ending coming at all. Would I have predicted it now, knowing what I do about the craft of writing? Hard to say, but Saw is still one of my favorite films.
Then came the sequels.
As with any series of films that suffers from Incrementing Title Number Syndrome, the Saw series descends into what amounts to Trap/Torture porn. But still I stuck with it, mostly because of the traps. While they end up ranking along the level of a Wile E. Coyote contraption, the sinister nature of the trials still held an allure. By the time we reached Saw 3 I was ready for it to be over. Then came the next three movies, which I refer to as the "Legacy Trilogy."
Not much of a legacy though, but when you look at it, it's impressive that the series used a central antagonist -- the Jigsaw -- in several movies after he was dead without using the old resurrection trope as we saw with Jason, Freddy and Michael Myers. No supernatural boogeyman, our Jigsaw, no sir. Just a rival of Rube Goldberg. Even so, the exploration into the posthumous work of Jigsaw's disciple, Detective Hoffman, still kept things moving.
What gives the series a strength over other films of this ilk is that each film is not just some isolated episode. Instead there's an overall plot thread (thin as it may be) that ties all the films together. I have to be honest, however, in that I don't believe the master arc was some grand design. Nope, this film introduces movie-goers to a concept used in Spider Man 3 -- retconning.
If you're not familiar with the concept, I'll 'splain, using the previously mentioned (and atrocious) film as an example of doing it wrong. In the first Spidey flick, Peter Parker's kindly Uncle Ben is killed by a criminal he could have stopped with his super powers but didn't. In the third film, Peter learns that there was a second crook involved in Ben's murder, and later he learns that it was accidental. This was done to bring in Thomas Hayden Church as Sandman, and to make him a sympathetic antagonist. And like I said, it was done poorly.
The Saw series, on the other hand uses flashbacks effectively to play loose with the time line, and there's enough "between the lines," as it were, for the script writers to fill in. This was a case where retconning could work and -- more often than not -- did. As someone who hates both retcons and flashbacks, I was impressed with how they handled both.
But the films still lost their luster. I had hoped that Saw VI would be the last, but the fates laughed at me, saying, "No, you fool! We'll subject you to another film, claiming this is the last, and you'll go to it because you're a tool. Plus we'll make it 3D so you pay extra for the ticket."
And I am. And I did. So I guess I better start talking about the film.
The final chapter of this series involves Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Jill (Betsy Russell) -- Jill is Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) ex/widow, and she's somewhat involved in this whole game, although less directly. At least until the end of Saw VI when she puts the Reverse Bear Trap 2.0 on Hoffman, who survives and escapes despite getting messed up by it.
So Jill flees to the police, specifically Detective Gibson (Chad Donella) of Internal Affairs, dropping Hoffman's name in hope of protection and immunity. Hoffman, like Jigsaw, is a skilled manipulator, so he sets a plan into motion so he can get Jill and extract his revenge. Meanwhile, self-help guru Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery), a Jigsaw survivor, is doing a book tour/support group thing to help others in the wake of their trials. He's sneered at by Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes), whom we haven't seen since the first film, and later Bobby gets jacked by a Pigheaded Disciple and his trial begins. It turns out he hadn't been tested by the Jigsaw before, so this is his chance to redeem himself and possibly save the life of his wife, his lawyer, his publicist and his friend in the process.
You can pretty much tell how this is going to play out. It's gonna get messy.
Hoffman is no Jigsaw, that much was made certain in previous films. He's not a redeemer, he's a killer. In fact, thus far in the series, none of the Jigsaw's Disciples have been true to his vision. Hoffman's not even a willing Disciple, when you think of it... he was essentially blackmailed into this. Thus it comes as no surprise that his own personal body count only goes up in this film. Sadly, Hoffman gets his hands on Jill, and it's a damn shame because Betsy Russell is too hot for a trap of that nature (and off screen she's even hotter as a brunette -- wow!).
Again, there's a bit of retconning in this film, but flashbacks aren't used much at all. This installment chugs along with Hoffman at the helm, trying to tie up loose ends before he can disappear.
I had two major problems with this film. The first is with the 3D thing. I rolled my eyes when I saw the trailer. Honestly, that bit about bad guys and spiky bits coming straight at you OUT OF TEH SCREEN! was old back in the early days of 3D horror films. This trailer does not impress.
Neither did the 3D. It's main purpose was to have some spiky bits look like it was coming for you, along with extra-gratuitous gore to spatter in your general direction in the hopes that you might scream or even flinch. In my case, neither happened.
The other issue was the final trap/challenge in Bobby's story arc. It basically involves the mechanism by which Bobby claimed to have endured in the trap that never really happened, but this time it's to save his wife's life. He fails, but not through any fault of his own (unless you think he needed to do more bench presses or something), and the missus gets cooked until well done. My problem with this is that in previous films if an innocent is involved in one of Jigsaw's traps, they're never meant to be harmed by the ordeal. Such examples includes Dr. Gordon's wife and child (Saw), Eric Matthew's son Daniel (Saw II), Jeff's daughter (Saw III & V) and Pamela and a currently nameless mother and child (Saw VI). Whether this is through the efforts of the test's true recipient or by writer's fiat, the innocent are not killed.
Bobby's wife Joyce, unlike the other victims on his path to redemption, is truly innocent. She never knew that Bobby lied about being one of Jigsaw's victims -- also unlike the others. The three interim trials/tests involving guilty parties play on the "speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil" trope (in that order), so what evil does Joyce represent? None. Joyce is not to blame for Bobby's machinations to fame, so she suffers (and dies) needlessly at the end. Personally, I think the film would have been better served if Bobby succeeded at that final trial and rescued the one good thing in his life. At least one thread in this film could have ended on a positive note.
All things considered, this film does bring the whole Saw concept to a close, albeit not as satisfying an end to me as it could have been. That said, the film did give itself an "out" (albeit a small one) should someone choose to make an eighth movie. If that does happen (and I hope to God it doesn't), the series will have to continue without me. I'm done. It's over, and in my opinion it's four films overdue.
Next time... we'll either talk more on horror, the quantum nature of cats, or whatever else tickles my fancy. Stay tuned!