DVD Review: Saw 3
Saw 3 (2006)
Studio: Lionsgate
DVD Release Date: January 23, 2007
Directed By: Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast: Bahar Soomekh, Shawnee Smith, Tobin Bell
Brutal As Hell Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Review By: Zombie Boy
As a thinking, feeling person, who also happens to be a huge horror fan, I hate the Saw films. The whole premise falls apart under even the barest trace of scrutiny, and as the franchise expands, no one in the production makes any bones about the fact that the complexity and brutality of the traps and the sheer amount of gore were upped because, “that is what the audience wants to see.” More emphasis is placed on having twists than them actually making sense. It is an exercise in pandering to a demographic of troglodytes with expendable income, and I am offended by the whole thing.
That being said, Saw III is incrementally better than Saw II, which was, in turn, incrementally better than the original film. If they keep going at this rate, by the time part 15 comes out (and don’t you think that they won’t milk this cash cow until the teats fall off) they may actually produce a good movie. After disposing of a few people straight away, in the requisitely rusty Draconian manner of the Saw milieu, just in case you forgot what franchise you were watching, we get to the meat of the matter: two intersecting storylines. The first one involves a man whose son was killed by a drunken driver being tested: he needs to learn forgiveness for the people complicit in giving his son’s killer an absurdly light sentence, and he needs to learn it the Jigsaw way. The second one involves the doctor who is kidnapped to help keep Jigsaw alive until the results of that test can be seen. Whatever could her significance be?
I think a spoiler for Part 2 was already made by the cast list above: the fact that Shawneee Smith is in yet another Saw film. But hey, why the hell are you reading a review for 3 if you haven’t seen 2? Anyway, the testing storyline is the regulation Saw bullshit, featuring highly improbable set-pieces relying heavily on the testee behaving in an exactly predictable manner. There is much gore and overacting, and the seeming complexity of the proceedings are a vain attempt to mask its underlying simplicity (the producers know that the average Saw fan isn’t exactly a big thinker). The other storyline, however, must have been slipped in under the radar. There are efforts made at displaying an actual emotional relationship, namely between Jigsaw and Amanda (Smith), and the fact that Amanda does not act in the way Jigsaw wants her to is the catalyst for an ending that will leave you wondering how the hell they squeaked a 4 and a 5 out.
In the special features section are the expected featurettes on the traps and the special effects, and all are to be lauded. The gore is realistic and gut-wrenching, and all of the traps, which are actual working pieces of machinery, are truly inspired flights of macabre fancy and wonderfully engineered by the crew. The only thing missing is a featurette on how the script was constructed from the ground up, to give us clearly defined characters whom we can care about. Oh wait, I guess that would have to have happened before it could be documented. Oh well. If you need any more evidence of what is going on around here, two of the three commentaries (!) are dominated by producers and executive producers.
