Saw VI

[Remo D]

The near-impossible has been achieved. Against all odds, what we have here is a SATISFYING CONCLUSION to the SAW series.

Now, before you write me off as incredibly naive, I'm not saying with any authority that this is actually going to BE the final entry. I've heard all about how three MORE of these things have supposedly been greenlit. But I am saying that this SHOULD be the final entry, because it actually seals the deal. Fairly.

Okay, you never WILL find out what (specifically) happened to Dr. Gordon. C'est la vie. The rest of the loose ends are tied up more than sufficiently. And in the meantime, SAW VI is one hell of a lot better than SAW V and is probably the best of the Dunstan/Melton continuations.

I wasn't sure about that at first, though. We open with one of the most brutally gory "trap" sequences in the entire series, and it made me think that the idea well had run dangerously dry and that the filmmakers had nothing left but in-your-face gore to command attention. (Oh, and for THAT matter, I couldn't help but wonder why the potential victims didn't think to throw DIFFERENT objects onto the scales--I'm sure the big guy's SHOES alone would have been worth a shot.) I also noted that the victims were now real-estate loan predators and medical insurance connivers... whoo-boy, hot-topic "in the news" fodder for extra points. Frankly, I'd resigned myself to another superficial entry.

But it gets better in a hurry. Taking a page from III, we're given one central character on a gauntlet far more intense than the one run by the bickering fools in the previous film. You've all seen a glimpse of the 'carousel' scene in the trailers, but you don't know what's at stake there--it's a climactic scene and it's one of the best that the series has served up. (The 'heat maze' is also pretty nifty, though it's got one of those annoying 90-second countdowns that lasts quite a bit longer than 90 seconds...)

Look, Kramer and Hoffman obviously had billions stashed away and probably created intricate traps all over the world or something--plausibility ceased to be a factor quite a while ago. And I know, I know, if Kramer--"Jigsaw" to you--had such massive resources, why couldn't he have sprung for his own special treatment... it doesn't matter--he had a moral point to make--he always does. Feel free to pick the logic apart.

But as I said earlier, the loose ends do NOT fall apart. It's easy to guess "what's in the box" and even easier to guess what's in Envelope 6. But you might still be wondering just what was written on the note that caused Amanda to melt down at the end of III? They pull it off, and in this world, it makes sense and satisfies dramatically.

Now, are you listening, Lionsgate? There is NOTHING more you can do with Jigsaw. His story is TOLD, and nobody's going to come up with yet another flashback revelation that I'll even CONSIDER swallowing. He took CARE of his unfinished business in this one, and he DIED three films ago. Are you going to make Tobin Bell play a year younger for every year he ages in real life? Are you going to dig up a safe deposit box nobody ever knew about with more tapes and more 'trap' blueprints? DON'T. You had a worthy goldmine of a character there, so be satisfied with that. And now that we've accounted for everybody else (we can imagine well enough for ourselves what specifically happened next even if a few bodies were still left twitching), there's nowhere else that the series NEEDS to go. Be happy. You have done well.

END IT. NOW.

[Chris Slack]

I agree, VI should definitely be the end. This one was much better that V and very satisfying.

[Darth Tanner]

I got burned out after SAW III and still haven't seen the last two entries. But after reading Remo's review I'm really wanting to see this one. I just need to catch up to parts IV and V first. But I do agree that the series needs to end now, but something tells me that might not happen right away.