Saw V

I wanted to like this movie. If you read my glowing review of Saw IV two weeks ago, you know I wanted to. Hell, this movie barely spent any time in the backlog at all - I purchased it just two days ago! Alas... this movie really wasn't that good. Saw IV left me with a vibe that the series, much like Lost, had a specific direction and was constantly using flashbacks to slowly reveal that everything was far more connected - and intended - than any casual viewer could have assumed. But after seeing Saw V, I'm stuck wondering if there's any plan at all. Allow me to explain; general spoilers of the entire series will inevitably ensue. At the end of Saw III, we learned that there was a little girl trapped in some location only known by Jigsaw. When her father killed Jigsaw out of vengeance, he failed his test, and was notified of this fact. I figured that the little girl's whereabouts would surely play into future films. Instead, this movie basically starts with Jigsaw's apprentice - Hoffman, we'll call him - walking out of the trap-laden building of Saw III and IV with the little girl in his arms. So, what the hell? Apparently, the girl was only even brought up at the end of Saw III to drive home the point that her father was a total fuck-up who had just killed his daughter. You know, just typical feel-bad "horror fluff." Here I was, expecting at least part of a future plot to revolve around the rescuing of this girl, and... it's done. But that's just a minor gripe compared to this next one. Saw IV began and ended with Hoffman listening to a Jigsaw recording, telling him that even he himself was not going to get away from Jigsaw without a "test" of some sort. Again, this scene came at both the beginning and the end of Saw IV - it really seemed like they were trying to drive home that the next movie would feature Hoffman partaking in a "game" of some sort. But... no. That's not what happened in Saw V. Not at all. Instead, Hoffman was testing (and framing) a colleague. In the beginning of the film, said colleague is placed in the trap depicted on the DVD cover (use your imagination) and manages to survive; when Hoffman finds out about this survival, he's stunned. Now, Jigsaw's whole modus operandi, back in the good old days when he was in charge of setting up traps, was to make a victim face his or her own death and make some kind of sacrifice - usually one inflicting great physical pain - in order to survive. Hoffman's victim does exactly that. But Hoffman still seems hellbent on framing and re-testing him. The whole movie felt like a great unraveling of whatever pseudo-moral code Jigsaw had established in the first place. Ultimately, Hoffman lures his colleague into another game. This time, the catch is something along the lines of, "just trust me and do exactly what I tell you to do." Yeah - a guy is really going to trust a man who has already tried to kill him once. Is this even a fair game? Now, of course, Hoffman prevails when his victim - who, by the way, has found out that Hoffman is Jigsaw's apprentice - does not trust him at all. Again, why the fuck would any sane man trust a guy who has already tried to kill him once before and furthermore is Jigsaw's apprentice? It doesn't make any sense at all. And here's a random plot point that never gets resolved: Jigsaw's former lover at one point opens a box left to her in Jigsaw's will. Sure enough, we never learn of its contents. Will we in Saw VI? I couldn't tell you. After all, I thought we'd see Hoffman put through some posthumous Jigsaw tests this time around. I also thought we'd see the Saw III little girl's rescue play a far more relevant role in the series than it did. If Saw is like Lost - and that's a very generous analogy - then Saw V was like the worst parts of Lost - namely, Season 2. We wanted answers, and got more questions. At times it seemed like the writers had a master blueprint that was slowly unfolding, but for the most part, this movie (and that season) just felt like they were stalling for time. And oh yeah, by the way, there was a whole second, completely unrelated plot point in Saw V. It involved a game in which five strangers had to make it through four rooms. I mean, this thing was as cliche and predictable as anything I've ever seen. Would you be surprised to learn that one person died in each room, leaving just one sole survivor? Would you be shocked to hear that these five strangers shared a secret connection that they never figured out until the final two cracked the case in the final room? Would you doubt it for a moment if I told you that, as it turned out, the five people could have all survived each room had they just worked as a team? I thought not. Worst of all, as I already mentioned, this subplot had absolutely nothing to do with the main story or the main characters in any way. Goddammit. I really did want to like this movie. In fact, I still do want to have liked it; it was almost definitely the worst movie yet in the series, and yet, I can't help but think of it more fondly than Saw II or III. Why this is, I cannot say. But the movie had a shitty plot that was almost entirely unrelated to the main Saw story as a whole - despite numerous flashbacks and extended glimpses of previous moments in the series. I just hope that Saw VI lives up to the quiet hype it's been getting; when I someday buy and watch that DVD, I want to be impressed again. Maybe it'll be best if I go in with no expectations whatsoever, and not expecting any headway to be made on Jigsaw's promise to test Hoffman one last time. After all, I went into Saw IV expecting to hate it, and liked it a lot; I hoped V would live up to IV, and it failed miserably to do so. Fuck it; forget the critical reaction altogether. I'll watch Saw VI as begrudgingly and reluctantly as I possibly can. Until then (January?), it's time to move away from this series and explore the rest of my backlog.