When bodies turn up in the city, the evidence points to John Kramer who has been dead for ten years. Meanwhile another group of people are playing a Jigsaw game...
The Saw series is an example of one that didn't know when to end. The third one ended with Kramer being killed. It really should have ended there. But in film, money talks and so the series continued with an apprentice taking over. Eventually, dwindling box office brought the series to an end with the rather disappointing Saw 3-D in 2010.
However Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures have decided to resurrect the series. But with the key character still dead (or is he?) can you come up with something new to say or will it be a retread of what has gone before.
Well, the first thing to be said here is that the film gets a bit more back to its roots here. From part IV onwards, the series seem to forget that it was the guilty that suffered. Often in the later films, innocent people got caught up in Jigsaw's plans. In the early films it was those who did something wrong that had to play the games and they suffered as a result.
Jigsaw remembers this concept. Those playing the game were chosen because they are guilty of something and it is they not the innocent that suffers. This new film also remembers that while the films have been given the tag of being 'torture porn' which I do think is unfair, though they are often gory and bloody, the original film certainly didn't have the bloody violence the ones that followed. Here, the gore has been toned down. It's still a bloody and violent film, but nowhere close to some of the others in the series.
It's clear writers Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg know the Saw films and know what works and made them successful. The films plot has the usual mystery at its heart, the usual twist at the end, but its one that works very well indeed.
The film is directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig (known, perhaps unsurprisingly as The Spierig Brothers) and like the writers know what makes the Saw films tick but bring fresh eyes to the series and as a result, the film does feel like the fresh start the series needed if this is indeed to continue from here.
The characters, those in the game and the police investigating, are it has to be said the usual cliched characters, but as said, the writers give them enough development to keep the audience guessing as to what is going on.
The cast is not bad. Tobin Bell returns as Kramer, as solid a presence as always. While the supporting cast includes Brittany Allen, Hannah Emily Anderson, Callum Keith Rennie, Matt Passmore, Laura Vandervroot and Cle Bennett to name a few and they are good too.
However, despite the new writers and directors involved, the film does still follow the same basic outline of the others in the series and looked at alongside the other films in the series, there really is nothing new here at all. But it is a much better than most of the films in the series and is probably the best one to come along since Saw III.
Jigsaw, may not be the most original film of its kind, but I was never bored by it, but at the same time wasn't as involved as I perhaps wanted to be. Personally, I think it could be that perhaps I've grown out of this type of film. When the series started I did enjoy them, but by the end in 2010 I think it was a case of sticking with them if only to see how they would end it. With Jigsaw, while I did enjoy it while watching it, I felt it was a watch more out of curiosity than anything else. Having said that however, I would say that if there is another one, I would probably view it in the same way.
For fans of the series, Jigsaw is a welcome return and a return to form for the series. For others, like me, it's worth seeing (you don't have to have seen the others to watch this new film), there may be enough in there to let you enjoy it.
Rating - 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment