Saw V

(2008) **


So, by the time we've started Saw V, our villain/protagonist Jigsaw really is gone for good. And yet, he has left two sets of instructions on how to carry out another "game". Only one set of instructions is used for Saw 5, which makes it about as subtle as a firecracker to the face that the other set of instructions is to be carried out in Saw 6. The primary game in this film has a set of loosely connected individuals with loose moral values, set up in another series of traps they must overcome. As a secondary plot, we watch Jigsaw's replacement, Detective Hoffman, as he tries to carry on Jigsaw's legacy while simultaneously trying to elude the FBI.

Detective Hoffman is good as a replacement villain, since, while we were all still kind of rooting for Jigsaw's obscure moralizing in the first four films, Det. Hoffman goes out of his way to torture and deliberately kill his victims, without the Sunday School lessons inherent in Jigsaw's games. So, we want Hoffman to get caught.

Det. Hoffman trying to wear Jigsaw's mask.

What had been appealing to me through the first four Saw films - the clever endings, completely falls flat here. Let me summarize (this is hardly a spoiler, but skip if you'd like): FBI agent walks into room, reads note, "The only way to survive this room is to get into the box filled with broken glass". FBI agent's response: "NO WAY am I getting into that box!" Now, this is supposedly an agent who has studied every Jigsaw trap ever and should have learned that the literal instructions always lead to salvation. The fact that the FBI agent doesn't make it does not come as a surprise at all.

It's actually pretty cool how he manages to get out of this trap.

Watching this film a second time last week, I actually saw that the real surprise of this film is a shot that illustrates that Hoffman is responsible for part of the climax of Saw 3. If you're really familiar with the denouement of Saw 3, this is really cool. However, if you haven't seen Saw 3 in a while, you may not even notice the significance of this surprise.

So again, if you plan on watching this one, make sure to check out parts 3 and 4 ahead of time.