With its disjointed story, underwhelming gore and uninteresting characters, “Saw 3D” is indistinguishable from others in the series.
Four films after the death of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), his apprentice Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) has escaped from a trap set by Jigsaw’s ex-wife, Jill (Betsy Russell). He plots revenge against the scheming widow with a series of murders in Jigsaw’s iconic style.
Fans will find nothing revolutionary in terms of gore or machines. The blood is unrealistically over exaggerated. A simple tooth pulling becomes ridiculous as a pool of blood forms below. The 3-D is forgettable as it flings out a few bits of gore at most.
The shallowness of the characters is too great. It’s easy to appear emotional when a character’s entire existence involves panicking in terrifying situations and trying to stay alive.
Most of this paltry 90-minute film takes place in flashback, used to support twists that are not surprising and create a choppy narrative throughout the film.
“Saw 3D” commits itself to the same elaborate mutilation that has made the series so popular. Yet when it covers material that was presented in six other movies over the past six years, it can be hard to call this final chapter anything else but redundant.
“Saw 3D” was written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan and directed by Kevin Greutert.