Saw III (2006)

recommended

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Jigsaw abducts a doctor in order to keep himself alive while he watches his new apprentice put an unlucky citizen named Jeff through a brutal test. If you like seeing innocent people once again dying you're going to love Saw III the sequel to the horrible Saw II, the acting is once again horrible and just stupid, the torture scenes continue to not satisfy and just keep throwing you dumb things for the benefit of the doubt and the worst of them all? Once again a character dies because why not? Jigsaw also dies in the end but does he really? Saw IV? (F)

Moving the franchise into a trilogy, the third brutal torture horror film explains a bit more how Jigsaw pulls off the sick games while showing even more gore. The film begins with Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) breaking his leg in an attempt to escape captivity. Detective Kerry (Dina Meyer) searches for Eric but she also falls victim to Jigsaw's awful torture. The main story consists of John Kramer (Tobin Bell) and his pupil Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) kidnapping a surgeon Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) in order to keep John alive. Jigsaw wants to oversee one last game before he finally passes away so attaches a deadly necklace to Lynn's neck that has shotgun cartridges all around it and will go off if John's heart rate stops.The test revolves around Jeff (Angus Macfadyen) who must go through a series of awful tortures. He lost his son in a drunk driving accident and has never recovered. His first test is to help the woman who witnessed his son's death, Danica (Debra McCabe), from freezing to death. She is hung up naked in a frozen locker and has water sprayed on her periodically unless Jeff grabs a key. He burns his cheek grabbing the key but doesn't save her in time. The next round is the judge who let the killer go, Judge Halden (Barry Flatman). The Judge will be drowned in rotten pig guts if Jeff doesn't burn his son's possessions to get the key. Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

I loved first movie. I am aware that sequels are often worse than original, but I expected them to stick to formula that worked so well in first movie, so even if sequels have no quality they would at least be fun. I saw second Saw that pretty much keep up with first one and I could not wait to see more. I never expected such unpleasant surprise. I knew this franchise will in time most probably lose some of its awesomeness, but such drastic drop in quality between two contiguous movies really surprised me. Saw III is not so bad by itself, but in comparison with first two this is complete catastrophe. First, it is boring. Few scenes twist stomach pretty successfully, but to achieve that effect one does not need much skill. Tension, suspension and fear are nowhere to be found. Second, this movie insults my intelligence. Unlike in prequels, story is completely linear, boring and predictable. And in addition to that it's full of holes and illogicality. Characters and their actions are unconvincing, especially Jeff. He lost so much time in every room for no obvious reason. If himself was threatened in any way I could understand his hesitation, but he was not. I have no nerves to get into the details, cause it would take to long. Further, flashbacks are lousy and have no purpose in story. For those who saw previous two films they just make this one more boring and unnecessarily stretch it to almost two hours. Last and the biggest disappointment was the end. Regardless of your taste and opinion about first two Saw movies, one thing you have to acknowledge and it's genius mindfak twist that ends them both. Here, they could not make effort even to achieve that. Ending is totally predictable. I knew how it will end, but I hoped that movie made me think that on purpose so they could make even bigger surprise when it ends differently, but that did not happen. It ended just as I suspected and I felt deprived. Movie ends in manner of low-budget gore horrors. In those it's not a flaw cause they do not pretend to be more than they are - movies based on disgusting scenes that do not need intelligent plot to achieve their purpose. But in Saw franchise that present itself as intelligent mystery thriller this is unforgivable. First hour I was bored but hoping that it will get better in time. During second half I was just sad and had to force myself not to give up before the end.5/10

Jigsaw victim Troy had to rip out the chains implanted to his skin to escape a bomb but he fails. A SWAT team breaks into the devastated room. Detectives Mark Hoffman and Allison Kerry continue their investigation and haunted by the missing Detective Eric Matthews. Kerry is kidnapped and set up in her own Jigsaw trap. She's too slow killing her. Troubled ER doctor Lynn Denlon is abducted by Jigsaw apprentice Amanda Young to treat her master John Kramer suffering from brain cancer. Lynn is fitted with an explosive collar to be released if John is still alive after finishing with his present victim Jeff. Jeff is obsessed with avenging his son's death by a drunk driver.The start is fine. I like taking Kerry as the next victim. I also understand the temptation to surprise kill her. However it would be much more compelling to switch Jeff with Kerry. I don't care about Jeff or Lynn. I don't care about Jeff's story. Jeff's flashbacks are boring. The body horror is still there but it doesn't have the shock anymore. This is not scary. Amanda is back and that's good. The ending is disappointing because it doesn't take the natural successor. This franchise insists on killing my favorite characters instead of continuing the series with them.