Theres's two opposing forces at work in the movies of the Saw franchise...and they're both present in this years Saw VI.
On the plus side there's the glorious torture porn; the poor buggers that have been enslaved into the Jigsaw killer's game. That means hard decisions, permanent bodily harm or, most often, death. Saw VI delivers on this convention with a series of horrifically witty puzzles, my personal favorite being the playground roundabout game.
However, you also have to slog through the increasingly contrived backstory of Jigsaw and those that assist him. Each movie it gets increasingly harder to remember who did what to whom and why. After easing up on the backstory in last years Saw V, the migrane inducing flashbacks are back with a bang. At least is DOES all make sense come the movie's resolution, but it's getting more like a serialised TV show rather than individual movies, requiring an annual recap of previous instalments on DVD before watching the latest film. It's getting hard telling them apart too.
The movie's surprise ace in the hole is the blunt and topical subtext about greed in our society. There's a wonderfully vicious swipe at greedy, selfish bankers in the pre-title gore-fest, while the rest of the movie delivers a intelligent damning of America's immoral health care system. Just when you thought the Saw franchise had run out of imagination, it stuns the gornography community with a shocking development; Saw has a brain!
2 comments:
I had given up after Saw V. Especially as I knew I had seen Saw IV but couldn't remember anything that happened. You know things are bad when you're not sure if it was the Saw movie or the Scary Movie franchise.
You've made this sound good so I may have to orange Wednesday it seeing as it's the only thing that hasn't been bumped for half term.
I personally enjoyed (if that's the right word) this more than any of them since 3. Mainly as it introduced a black humour in to some of the gross procedings and was actually about something...or at least something more than the usual Jigsaw life wasting schtick. It is basically a non-too-subtle swipe at the greed and sheer inhumanity that lies at the heart of the American healthcare system. For all the faults of the NHS I just thank God every day that we have it. There is a cracking scene where John Kramer (the always excellent Tobin Bell) debates with an 'evil' suit the ethics and intelligence of a healthcare system where the key decisions on treatments are made by greedy gits in suits just looking for a way to make as much money from policy holders as possible rather than by medical staff deciding what's best for their patients. "We've got it all ass backwards," he snaps. Damn right!
Of course you see a Saw film mainly for the horribly ingenious games. And this doesn't dissapoint. The opening one is a real stomach churner. But the best is the guys and girls chained to a childs roundabout. It's horrible...but also funny. Plus the reveal in this one is a lot better than most. It actually totally surprised me when it came. And it made perfect sense.
Saw might be six down. But it ain't out. Yet.
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