After nearly a decade of on-screen dismemberment, Saw 3D promised to be the culmination of the franchise. The seventh film in the series, Saw 3D was also released as Saw: The Final Chapter. Call it whatever you want. Saw 3D winds down the Jigsaw story, wraps up dangling story threads, and manages to be meta without being cloying.
Saw 3D starts with a couple of shocking moments. To quote Brian Blessed, “Gordon’s alive!” That’s right, the hapless and footless Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) managed to survive his dirty bathroom ordeal in the original Saw by cauterizing his stump against a steam pipe.
Flash forward to present day. Three people are caught in a trap. They can’t walk out, because they’re in a storefront window, baby. It’s one of the most public traps in a Saw film, viewed by hundreds of people on a busy sidewalk. Gruesome and darkly humorous, it’s one of the best kickoff kills in the franchise.
Meanwhile, the power struggle between the neo-Jigsaw, Lieutenant Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) and Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) continues. After escaping the reverse bear-trap at the end of Saw VI, Hoffman continues his personal vendetta against Tuck. Asking for police protection, Tuck goes to Internal Affairs officer Matt Gibson (Chad Donella) with the offer of all the evidence he could want against Hoffman.
Meanwhile, Hoffman is carrying out a new game with a different set of test subjects. This time, the target is media darling Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flannery). Dagen has made a name for himself for surviving one of Jigsaw’s traps. He’s making the rounds on the talk show circuit, hyping his self-help book based on the experience.
There’s only one problem. It never happened. Jigsaw never trapped Dagen. He’s a big fat liar, exploiting the pain of others for his own enrichment. Besides Dagen, Hoffman has kidnapped those in Dagen’s inner circle, including his wife, Joyce (Gina Holden). Dagen has one hour to save his wife while trying to help the others escape.
Boy howdy, there’s a lot going on in this movie. That’s to be expected for the seventh film in a saga known for its interwoven storylines, loose usage of timelines, and a minute attention to detail. Everything is important. Anything could be a boomerang. You’ve got to keep your eyes open in a Saw movie.
There’s a fun concept at work in Saw 3D. Dragging a self-help guru through the steps of his own pop psychology program is a wonderful idea, fertile ground for a biting satire on both those so-called experts and the daytime talk show industry. That never quite happens in Saw 3D. There’s barely a shred of humor in this movie. Saw 3D busies itself with ending things, connecting all the dots and bringing the series to a logical, satisfying conclusion. It’s fast-paced as it marches inexorably toward the end, but any semblance of character development has been cast by the wayside.
Free from the complications of expanding the Saw Universe and setting up another sequel, Saw 3D feels strangely insular. Traps exist simply for the sake of existing. Certain set-pieces, including one featuring Chester Bennington, the late singer of Linkin Park, don’t make sense within the framework of the franchise. Those sequences only serve to please the fans who watch the Saw movies solely for the traps. There’s a strong sense that the franchise is zooming straight towards the brick wall of finality.
And then, there’s the Jigsaw problem. Even after his death, John Kramer (Tobin Bell) has been the linchpin for all the movies. His frail presence and doom-laden voice gave the Saw movies a sense of gravitas, a prestige not found in other horror series. Kramer appears in Saw 3D for less than five minutes. His absence leaves us with the insane Hoffman and the cowering Jill Tuck. Watching those two characters square off is almost enough to sustain Saw 3D, but not quite.
Something is missing from Saw 3D, and it’s John Kramer.
That’s not to say Saw 3D isn’t enjoyable, inasmuch as one can enjoy a Saw movie. As Hoffman, Mandylor gets to unleash his hidden, perverse action star. Hoffman has gone mad, desperately trying to avoid paying for his own crimes. He goes on a murder spree like a deranged Terminator, and the body count is astoundingly high.
Look: if you want blood, you’ve got it. While the ending is nonsensical fan service, it’s just stupid enough to be cool. This is a Saw movie. Nobody’s looking for Shakespeare, and the retcons come at a furious pace. And yet, there’s something solid to Saw 3D. It does provide closure. There is a sense of finality, and there’s a lot of crazy bloody action in the process.
With the familiar phrase, “Game over,” the Saw series proper comes to an end. Saw 3D isn’t perfect, but it closes the series like a heavy, sliding bathroom door throwing the audience into darkness.
