Review of “Saw III”
The old adage that it’s difficult to destroy a good story with poor style but it’s almost impossible to rescue a bad story with great style holds firmly true with the latest Saw movie, which is an endlessly dull repetition of hyper-stylised gore. But with an opening weekend box-office in the USA of more than $30 million, Australian creators Leigh Whannell and James Wan will no doubt be laughing all the way to the blood bank.
In Saw III, Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) continues to play his devious and deadly games, whilst moralising behind the mask, but now all is done from his deathbed with the help of Amanda (Swanee Smith), his complicit disciple who escaped from previous Saw movies intact. After some cursory and gratuitous killings of characters from Saw II to clear the decks, the film settles down to business with the capture of a pill-popping surgeon Lynn (Bahar Soomekh), and revengeful father Jeff (Angus MacFadyen). Each is set tests, with failed human potential as the cause of their predicament and a bloody death as the clear consequence of failure. Success involves navigating the trademark Saw traps of chains, locks, drills, saws, gore, self inflicted pain, and a few new bone-crunching, blood-oozing tricks.
Director Darren Lynn Bousman, another member of the so-called “splat pack”, maintains the visual mode from Saw II but also relies upon a series of flashbacks to tie this film to its predecessors, but these only serve to dissipate what little tension has been created.
Character motivation, narrative credibility and the tension that should define the horror genre sit firmly locked in chains – like victims of this franchise - with no hope of escape. The film is a continuous loop of ridiculous and gory game playing, noise, blood and panic, stitched together with a super-hyped style characteristic of the most unimaginative music video clip. Characters remain undifferentiated in their responses to their predicament with heavy breathing, screaming and clawing the required performance standard. The film seems to have an unshakeable faith that its gruesome games are sufficient entertainment, and no doubt die-hard Saw fans will just sit back and enjoy the impromptu brain-surgery scene with relish. For others, the most interesting question is – given the ending of this film – is this Game Over?
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