SAW III
Lionsgate
Rated R
STARRING:
Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Angus Macfayden and Bahar Soomekh
THE VERDICT:
For fans of gore alone, “Saw III” offers the goods, but those looking for even the slightest bit of plot or character should stay home.
1.5/4 stars
For better and worse, horror sequel “Saw III” picks up exactly where “Saw II” left off. Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is still chained to a wall by his foot in a dark, scary place, and since torture mastermind Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) is behind his imprisonment, you can bet his escape will involve a painful choice about self-mutilation.
Jigsaw fancies himself the Dr. Phil of psychotics. He picks his victims for their shortcomings–drug addictions, repeat criminal offenses, etc.-and throws them into life-or-death situations where they have to choose between a horrifyingly bloody demise or an equally grisly escape at the loss of, say, a limb or non-vital organ. But, hey, they sure will value their lives more if they survive the ordeal, and who really needs a tongue to get through the day after all?
Soon enough audiences recognize that Matthews is imprisoned in the same dingy bathroom set from the first two films. Matthews sees the famously severed foot from the original “Saw” and begins to hacksaw off his own before thinking better of it. But not to worry, gore fans. He still has to free himself one way or another, and, oh yes, there will be blood.
This opening scene is actually pretty effective, but it’s just a distraction from the real plot of the film.
Jigsaw’s on his deathbed with an inoperable brain tumor, while his prot‹¨g‹¨ Amanda (the unintentionally funny Shawnee Smith) makes his rounds for him. Amanda kidnaps an angst-ridden doctor (Bahar Soomekh in a major step down from “Crash”) and whisks her to Jigsaw’s lair to keep him alive as long as possible. To ensure that the doctor does her best, she’s placed in a collar that will splatter her brains to kingdom come if Jigsaw’s heart stops.
Oh, and there’s another focal point to the plot that seems utterly disconnected at first, involving a grieving father out for vengeance against the drunk driver who mowed down his son. Jeff (Angus Macfadyen, a long way from “Braveheart”) spends his days weeping over his lost kid’s sock monkey and going all Travis Bickle in a mirror, waving a gun and practicing death threats. Jigsaw, of course, wants to “play a game” to teach Jeff to let go of his anger.
This time out, Jigsaw’s games are even viler and more elaborate than usual. A naked woman is strung up in a freezer as sprinklers slowly turn her into a nude-sicle. One man may drown in the bottom of a vat that is being slowly filled with maggoty goop from shredded pig carcasses. Another man’s limbs will be twisted on a rack. The games can be beaten, but only if one is willing to take a shotgun blast to save another’s life or burn one’s hand in acid to reach a key.
Not that escape is really the point. “Suffering?” mutters Jigsaw. “You haven’t seen anything yet.” As the “Saw” series drags on, it devolves further into glorified snuff for death junkies. No one cares about the plot. Like the “Final Destination” franchise, “Saw” movies are about creative deaths, the bloodier the better.
And in that respect, “Saw III” is the “Citizen Kane” of gore. Heads explode, bones protrude from flesh, an Achilles tendon or two gets ripped out. And there’s a long centerpiece scene in which Jigsaw must have part of his own skull removed with only rusty power tools as surgical implements. The camera never cuts away, and the operation never seems to end, with squishy brain sounds and close-ups of a drill bit boring through bone accomplishing a gross-out of monumental proportions.
There’s decent craft in the violence, but it’s not enough to make the rest of the sloppy exercise tolerable. The acting is largely awful, the hyperactive editing unnecessarily bruising and the script redundant to the point of absurdity. How many flashbacks are required to repeat information the audience already knows?
The greatest sin of “Saw III” is that it is terribly overlong. 107 minutes to tell the simplest of slasher stories is far too much. Flashback after flashback bores and pads the running time as the filmmakers try desperately to link all three films into a cohesive trilogy. While it’s fun to see Jigsaw prepping the bathroom set from the first film, what purpose does it really serve? The same goes for drawn-out recollections of Amanda’s recruitment and even (just what the world needs) a romantic flashback to Jigsaw’s long-gone love life.
Since the plot twists are mostly telegraphed far in advance, audiences are left to ponder other more pressing questions, such as who gives the film’s worst performance. Is it the vacant-eyed Soomekh, who never seems more than slightly annoyed by her predicament, rolling her eyes like a restaurant patron who just got served the wrong dish? Or is it Macfadyen, bellowing and dithering and never approaching a genuine emotion?
Who utters the best howler in the film? Bell’s got a shot at that title: “Death is a surprise party unless, of course, you’re already dead on the inside.” But my money’s on Wahlberg: “You’re nothing! You’re not Jigsaw, b—-!”
Under layers of pale makeup, who does Tobin “Jigsaw” Bell resemble most to you? At times the visages of Edgar Winter, Bill Nighy and maybe even a little Maggie Smith show through.
And how does Jigsaw know everything about seemingly everyone, including their reaction to news they haven’t even gotten yet?
And why is there a weepy scene with Amanda crying over Jigsaw’s fading body? Do the filmmaker’s think audiences are emotionally attached to these characters?
And, furthermore, who cares? “Saw III” gets points for good gore, but that’s all it has to offer. Its bleak world outlook is also true of the profit-hungry film industry that spawned it and has probably already greenlit “Saw IV.” In Jigsaw’s world, and in Hollywood, there will always be one more game left to play, full of sound, fury, suffering and gore, and signifying absolutely nothing.