Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Saw VI


(2009) **1/2

Jigsaw’s antics return! This time, as an advocate of the Obama Administration! Kind of. The film opens with a competition between two predatory lenders. Whoever can cut off the most flesh within 60 seconds, gets to live.
The bulk of the film is then spent testing a man, working for a health insurance company, perfecting the formula that decides who should be insured and who shouldn’t, as well as overseeing the team that tries to dismiss claims in any way possible.

Overall, I haven’t thought that any of the Saw movies were very good films. However, the endings have always been so terribly clever and impressive, that I have seen all 6 of them – the last three I even saw at the theaters! So, this is what I thought originally. The endings for saw 1-4 (4 especially) were creative, plausible, and I didn’t see them coming at all. Saw 5 really disappointed me, as one could see the “surprise” ending coming a mile away. Seriously – it had sitcom-like predictability.

Saw 6 is kind of a mixed bag. It restores some of the cool “film noir” style that helped make the first one so popular, but the tricks and chicanery are wearing thin. The ending is a surprise, but certainly not a jaw-dropper. It’s more of a “oh, so it was like that all along. Hm. That’s interesting”, rather than a “Wow! I can’t believe it!”.

I have hopes for the 7th one, (which part six sets up), but that’s probably just because I’m an optimist. I’ve read that there will definitely be a Saw 7 & Saw 8. Part 7 will be in 3-D. I just hope that they work on making an ending that will live up to the inventiveness of the early films in the series.

Maybe next year, I’ll watch all of them. Maybe not.

2 comments:

Octopunk said...

Sigh. I have to catch up on these myself. Thought I was hot stuff when I watched the first three all in one day in 2006, but now look.

Has there ever been another franchise that generated sequels at the rate of one a year without a break? I mean besides porn.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Harry Potter?

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...