Giving opinions for several years and showing like a fine vintage
Giving opinions for several years and showing like a fine vintage
Member since:11.07.2000
Reviews:625
Members who trust:55
Personally I just don't understand why the Saw franchise has been successful, the first movie was a good concept poorly executed and the second wasn't great apart from a few novel traps. So comes Halloween time, Saw 4 has been knocked out but I still hadn't seen the third instalment. Would there be enough to change me into a jigsaw fan?
This episode sees our main villain Jigsaw consigned to his deathbed, slowly dying from a brain disease. Having garnered a sidekick in previous victim and now jigsaw groupie Amanda, he can still stage elaborate and gruesome traps for people who've got some skeletons in the closet or need an awakening on their life. So they kidnap a female doctor and place her in a collar rigged to explode should she fail to keep Jigsaw from flatlining. Meanwhile they're playing a game with a father torn with grief over the death of his young son. Should the father get through the series of traps then the doctor will be released. But of course nothing is all plain sailing and there are all manner of gruesome pratfalls that ensue as well as the obligatory twist and ending which leaves things open for the new instalment.
Out of all the Saw films I've seen so far, this ranks as the worst. It's main fault is that it's pretty boring for a horror film and lacks the imagination of the traps which gave a little bit of spark to number two.
The thing that has always annoyed me about all the films in the series is that they're sloppily directed and use that annoying methods of making you have a fit with some rapid cuts in the editing. It's not cool, it's not clever it's just lazy and fails to build any tension. Darren Bousman once again takes the reigns and paints the film in garish green colour tones and as many drunken monkey edits as he can.
Performance wise, everything is acceptable. Marky Mark's brother turns up from the second film and probably get's the best scenes. In all honesty I found all the traps in this one devoid of tension and design. The intent seemed to be purely on gore rather than having you on the edge of your seat.
IF you like the franchise then there's some good backstory but in the grand scheme of horror franchises this is nowhere near the top. And by the way I saw the twist coming pretty quickly.
- The DVD -
I have to admit that despite the garish colour scheme of the film, it looks pretty good on dvd with a crisp transfer and great handling of all the action scenes which mainly take place in darkness. The film's soundtrack also creates some great atmospherics within Dolby Digital, making it a great creepy environment to watch the film in.
- Extras -
What I got on this disc was not a great deal.
There are a couple of featurettes that deal with the making of film and the design of the traps. As I didn't find any of the traps interesting in this film I didn't really find a lot to enjoy. The directors diary segment is a behind the scenes look at Bousman working on the film. It's nothing special and ends before it really get's going, the only interesting bit for me was when he was directing an actor and actually explaining the various choppy editing methods he was to employ.
Rounding it out is a few deleted scenes and teasers and trailers for the film.
-Finally-
I found Saw 3 a bit boring, if you like the films then you'll probably go for this but to me they're prime examples of MTV style filmmaking at it's worst.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
![Saw 3 [Extreme Edition]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/100803582.jpg "Saw 3 [Extreme Edition]")
Jan 15th, 2008
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (93%):
