Saw IV (Unrated Widescreen Edition)

Ah Beth, this is what happens when I am encouraged to shit on a movie, but first…I want to play a game!

This review shall be your trap and you are its victim, to save yourself you must watch (read) as I tear the living shit out of a movie you liked.

Live or Die Beth….it does matter.

The fourth installment in what is fast becoming this generations Friday the 13th, SAW IV continues the annual tradition of gory traps, mind bending twists and sinful victims.

But wait now, the victims I speak of aren’t the ones on screen, oh no my dear readers, the sinful victims are the poor saps who went into the movie with high hopes, hopes which were raised higher then Cheech or Chong could ever get by teasers (which lived up to their names), Bousmans’ ‘infamous’ ‘double meanings’, and a slew of mouthwatering promises, their punishment…to have their hopes come crashing down hard for being stupid enough to believe the hype.

The movie opens with an autopsy of Jigsaws wrinkly corpse (ladies you can see his nads!), this is one of the few good scenes in the movie only because the effects (with a few exceptions) were fucking spectacular. Inside Jiggys’ stomach the coroner finds a wax coated cassette tape…….what you want me to tell you why it’s there? Come on people if it’s this late in the game (puns you very much) and you still aren’t clued in then maybe it’s time to call it quits.

Ahem, so then we cut to Detective Riggs and Hoffman (Murtoge couldn’t make it to this one!), you may remember these two happy characters from the 3 seconds they were in the last movie, Riggs gets the bigger roll because his resume says he played a 10 minute character in SAW II, yippee.

Essentially Riggs must go trough a series of tests which an unknown Jigsaw wannabe has been putting up all around town for him, we have a suspect of course due to a scene earlier on which came out of nowhere. If Riggs can pass his tests he will be able to save both Detective Hoffman *cough* Jigsaw Wannabe *cough*, and former LAPDs’ finest, Detective Eric Mathews, yes kiddos he is still alive, I guess Amanda didn’t have enough balls to kill the resilient son of a bitch.

Whilst all this is going on, two FBI agents whose names I cannot remember (for Christ sakes people it was hard enough keeping up with this incoherent plot without committing to memory the names of nothing characters who will probably be the main characters of the inevitable SAW V)…they have the delightful job of interrogating John ‘Jigsaw’ Kramer’s ex-girlfriend…let me tell you guys I hope I’m banging gals that good looking when I am Jiggys’ age.

With the introduction of Jiggys’ ex into the picture we get even further insight into the making of Jiggyland™, where the owner is a carpenter by day and an insanely elaborate trap making serial killer by night.

Dammit jeeves I’m ready for my twist……..so where is it?

As you should be able to tell by now I am having a hell of a fun time tearing the shit out of this movie with this review, and why shouldn’t I? After my initial reaction to seeing it (that windshield cost me $175 to repair, I kid you not) this is frigging therapy for me.

I was one of those gullible suckers who ate up every tidbit of news from the very moment they came out, but no longer am I a fan of the SAW movies, I have been reduced to having to say that I am a fan of the first three SAW movies….can you spot the difference?

*Sigh* so what made it such a let down? We may as well dive right into the deep end and get to the plot problem, oh boy were there some big ones.

Riggs must go through a series of tests to save Mathews because he has a bit of a habit of wanting to save people, I don’t know about you but it seems like Jigsaws’ radar for sinners has been knocked a little askew for this one.

Each trap, just like Jeff’s’, has the victims lives depend on decisions made by Riggs who is all the while being subliminally coaxed into living the Jiggology™ way of life, will somebody please tell me who the fuck set all this shit up? Amanda was busy kidnapping Lynn and Hoffman probably nabbed Jeff’s’ sorry ass. I am well aware that Jigsaw is always thinking of Plan As’, Bs’, Cs’ and probably Ds’ but COME ON! Oh I’ve got an original idea, maybe there’s a third apprentice! Shit I didn’t see that one coming [INSERT SARCASM HERE].

Then there’s the choice of Jigsaws’ heir, okay we always knew there was going to be a new apprentice (YOU’RE FIRED…sorry, couldn’t help it) but did it seriously have to be the guy that people had been suspecting since day one? And the fact that they ripped of their own franchise had me confused to high hell. I do remember Darren saying in an interview that they were going to try and bring back elements from the first three, I didn’t expect him to carbon copy them, the ending is the same as SAW, the more-is-more attitude is SAW II and the main plot is SAW III, was there anything left over to be called SAW IV?

Yes actually there was! The insight into Jigsaws long lost past was actually quite interesting, the reason for this can be boiled down to Tobin Bells’ acting, which is still exceptional.

While we are on the subject of acting, Lyriq Bent is almost as charismatic as a cardboard cut out standee, Costa Mandylor was better in Dr. Chopper for Christ sake (wow now that was harsh), and as for the two FBI agents…meh. You know you’re in trouble when you can’t even out act a dead body!

At the very least they could have had a good twist ending but even that was missing, instead we get a neutered down rehash of past endings, the only good thing about it was Mathews death, despite being a rip off at least that was shocking to watch (Somebody’s been watching Final Destination 3).

Holy shit its Jeff! Oh wait, no that’s just the second twist ending, the fact that SAW IV is actually taking place at the same time as SAW III would have been cool if the whole misleading timeline hadn’t already been done (and much better for that matter) in SAW II.

Where’s my sandwich board when I need it, I’m going to start a protest. Darren you promised us stuff and unlike the troops in Iraq, you backed out…why?

You promised us SAW IV…when? This isn’t SAW IV, this is SAW 3 ½!

You promised us the biggest twist ending in the entire SAW series…where?

Are you honestly expecting people to be shocked at the revelation that the guy who played a man whose wife was a chiropractor who committed suicide because she couldn’t cure a patients’ back ache? (That was in Dr. Chopper by the way)

The best that you could hope for is some good gore but even that was made null and void, yes there is the autopsy (which was actually pretty kick ass) but it’s the traps we’re looking at and yes they are violent but honestly there isn’t much else to them, the hair trap was cringe inducing but other then that they were so damn weak it’s not funny, we don’t see half the bloodletting because we get more shaky cam action and I’m not even going to go there (check out my Halloween and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem reviews if you want my opinion on that fucking filmmaking technique).

I should wrap this up because if I keep going it’ll be SAW V time when you finish reading this, but damn it there’s so much more I could say that I feel like I’m short changing you all by finishing here.

Plot holes, bad plot, bad twist, bad characters, bad gore, bad…everything killed this movie, I am well aware that there are people who liked it (Beth I’m looking at you) but why is it that the majority of them didn’t like either SAW or SAW III but did like SAW II? The only other one which opted to use violence over plot! Is SAW IV the lazy man/ woman’s SAW? Hopefully I’ll like it better when it comes out on DVD, but I doubt it.

I hoped it was over, but I was wrong because now they’re making SAW V.

Live or Die? Give me the fucking gun. BAM I made my choice.

- Danny

MOVIE: 2 out of 5

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