A flashback from the last movie plays,
as we see the aforementioned envelope was indeed placed into Gordon's
office. More flashbacks follow, showing Gordon becoming Jigsaw's
disciple after surviving his test just like Amanda did. This all
fits perfectly and fixes various plotholes such as “how the hell
could a civil engineer perform such advanced surgery?!” that has
been hovering around these movies since the second one.
What's REALLY fascinating about this
reveal has nothing to do with the movie whatsoever. January 18th,
2009 YouTube user Toberoon uploaded a video called “Dr. Gordon
is alive!” where he posited a theory that Gordon survived the
events of the first movie and became Jigsaw's apprentice. One of his
biggest pieces of evidence was the opening Billy tape from Saw II,
which showed a cloaked “Jigsaw” limping towards Michael's
unconscious body to implant a key in his eye. Remember in Saw II when I asked you to remember
that? This is why.
Toberoon turned out to be 100% correct, as the
movie even shows him doing the surgery on Michael. Keep in mind,
this was uploaded before even Saw VI came out with its
spoilery envelope scene, so this video is some kind of amazing. Many
people have speculated the producers of Saw viewed this video,
smacked themselves on the forehead, and changed their plans to copy
it because it makes so much damn sense. Now I doubt this, as the
limping man HAD to always have been intended to be Gordon but
still... it does make one wonder.
All the movies are covered, including
showing Gordon was the one who wrote Hoffman the letter saying he
knows who he really is, a subplot I will admit to having completely
forgotten about in all this. The final flashback shows Gordon
playing the tape in his envelope, Jigsaw asking him to protect Jill.
OOPS! You'd really think a man that could see the future like Jigsaw
can would have had a better “out” for her planned than that. Hoffman wakes up in the infamous
bathroom with a chain around his ankle, because there's no other way
this movie was going to end and you fucking well knew it. Hell, you
even know exactly what happens next. Gordon, play us out of here if
you would.
“Game over.”.
Slam the door shut and cue the credits.
This is how Saw, the franchise
that kicked in the door and reinvented horror, ends. Not with a
mighty roar, but with probably the weakest ending outside of the
Matrix trilogy. In my last post, I talked about how Saw VI
bombed in comparison to the rest of the movies but fared pretty well
critically. Inspired by these positive reviews, audiences came back
in droves and Saw VII was back to its "making more than ten
times the budget" ways.
Joke was on us though, because this was
WORSE than Saw V in every way, shape, and form. It couldn't
even break a 10% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes (it “earned” a 9%),
which puts its firmly at the bottom of the barrel for the series.
It's disappointing after how refreshingly good the previous movie
was, but as I pointed out in the opening on this review it was to be
expected because the deck was stacked against this before shooting
even began.
Pretty much everything was wrong here,
especially the deaths of Jill and Joyce. The acting was terrible
across the board, and for the first time in the series we got a movie
that LOOKED bad. I've talked about how the sets have always been
dark and drab, but this could have easily been mistaken for a made
for TV movie. I'm not going to place the blame all on Greutert's “I
don't want to be here” shoulders, a lot of it is the fault of the
executives who demanded this movie be in 3D.
I've reviewed a handful of movies on
here that were shot for 3D, but have never once had to point out a
scene that was bad because of the gimmick. By the way, this is one
of the few compliments I'll ever give to Michael Bay because never
once was it distracting in Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. Here though... oh boy. It was all
horribly cheesy and embarrassing, serving as a guide book why you
should never shoehorn 3D into a movie unless you have at least a $100
million dollar budget. An added effect of this was making the blood
in this movie look insanely fake, because they had to lighten it up
for the 3D effects to work. Every time an actor got busted open I
kept wondering why they had Pepto Bismol running through their veins.
One of ideas for the sequels after John
Kramer died was to turn Mark Hoffman into a deranged vigilante ala
the Punisher who would go after targets like the Mafia, but this was
denied because it wasn't “Saw” enough. This is funny
because the entire franchise hasn't been “Saw” enough
after the first one. I'm not sure I can think of a better example of
“how not to follow up a hit movie” than these films, as in the
end it was just one gigantic clusterfuck of bad decisions and
outright “what the fuck were they thinking?!” nonsense.
As Dr. McCoy from the new Star Trek
movies would say, Lionsgate bet on the wrong pony by picking Costas
Mandylor to take the reigns of Jigsaw for the last four movies.
Nothing against him because he's a good actor, he was just woefully
miscast here. He LOOKED the part of a ruthless killer, and I sure as
hell wouldn't mind seeing him in a slasher movie after his
performance here, but totally lacked the cerebral presence Tobin Bell
introduced to the series. Oh! And how about that? Tobin Bell, the
heart and soul of Saw, was in this damn thing for like two
minutes! How did they make a mistake that big? And, more
importantly, who in the world thought it'd be a good idea to put him
in a backwards baseball hat?!
Not much else to say about this one, or
the other six movies. If you're big time into horror I can recommend
them if you haven't seen them, even with the bad tipping the scales
on the good. If you're not into horror movies, steer clear of these
for the exact same reason I just listed above. Not that horror has
lower standards per se, it's just a different mindset for
expectations and whatnot. Horror, to me at least, is more about the
elements in play than the actual story so it's a pretty damn big
bonus that Saw gives the detailed story that it does.
It's
been a nice little trip down memory lane, but one I have no desire to
relive anytime soon. Watching all of these the past two weeks and
especially having to endure III, V, and VII all
in such a close time span has pretty much quenched my thirst for
these movies for a LONG time. Don't fret though, Lionsgate is apparently hard at work trying to craft a sequel or a reboot to this series because OF COURSE they are. Still a week left til Halloween, I'm
going to try to find some BETTER horror fare for the next review.
Wrapping things up, how did this series
fare in the Ghoul Breakdown?
1. Which Was The Best Movie?
Saw I, duh. Although since that
ends up barely being a Saw movie since it has almost no
connection to the rest of the series, I'm going with Saw VI.
It's probably the best late series horror sequel ever made.
2. Which Was The Worst Movie?
Saw V is atrocious, but sadly it
can't even hold a candle to Saw VII. Bloody hell, it was BAD bad.
3. Which Movie Had The Best Hero?
Saw VI's William Easton, but
like I said previously he's a protagonist and not a hero. Not only
is he the only lead we got to know before he entered the game, he's
also the only one to actually LEARN something during his trial.
4. Which Movie Had The Worst Hero?
Saw III's Jeff Denlon, just a
total asshole I couldn't wait to get killed off.
5. Which Movie Had The Best Villain?
Kind of tricky since pretty much one
guy is the main villain throughout the entire series, but I'm going
with Jigsaw in Saw II. One of the rare times he was actually
involved in everything, it's a thing a beauty to watch him
masterfully play everyone in his human game of chess.
6. Which Movie Had The Worst Villain?
Hoffman in Saw VII, no contest.
In which all of the brilliant, well thought out mind games are
abandoned for him to turn into Every Slasher Villain EVER.
7. Which Movie Had The Best Love Interest?
Hahah, wrong series. Try again!
Bonus round! The only reason Saw has a
fandom outside of horror movies junkies is it has a large, sprawling
storyline full of interconnected characters linked by flashbacks
BEFORE the TV show Lost made it cool. But even a story this
big is bound to have some unresolved story lines, so let's see if the
Final Chapter managed to tie up all its dangling threads!
-Saw I: Now this one is due to
the fact this was meant to be a standalone movie, but Jigsaw ordered
Zep to kill Gordon's family if the good doctor didn't kill Adam.
This completely goes against his character in later films, but it
really stands out due to the later movies. Although maybe not so
much after we saw what happened to poor Joyce.
-Saw II:
What happened to Daniel Matthews? I know it's not really important,
but he is never mentioned again after being found in the safe.
-Saw
III: Still no explanation for
how Jigsaw knew about Danica witnessing Timothy Young's hit and run,
even with the later reveal he had access to Hoffman's police
resources.
-Saw III: How did Jigsaw know
Hoffman wrote Amanda a letter, much less tell her to go read it?
-Saw IV: When we see Hoffman
writing his threatening letter to Amanda, he places a key in there as
well. The key is never shown again, so what the hell was the point
of that?
-Saw IV: Gordon's reveal really
complicates this movie's plot. Okay, so in the beginning Art Blank
survives a trap. Now we see from a flashback that Gordon is the one
who helped set up this trap, so Hoffman could have had NO role in it
whatsoever. But then later on we find out Art is unknowingly working
for Hoffman, so does this mean Art is the unluckiest son-of-a-bitch
in history by getting tested by TWO different serial killers?
-Saw V: Brit and Mallick's
storyline is never resolved to any kind of satisfactory conclusion.
I get the whole thing was set up to ultimately frame Strahm as
Jigsaw, but the movie did a terrible job at establishing any of this.
We do briefly see Mallick at Dagen's support group in Saw
VII, but never a word about what happened after their ordeal.
-Saw VI: How did Hoffman know
Amanda was at the clinic the night Cecil accidentally killed Jill's
unborn baby, even when Jigsaw himself didn't know this? This one
bugs me to this day.
-Saw VI: Amanda's warning
to Corbett Denlon was never followed up on. To be fair though, this
one probably isn't a plothole since it wasn't even part of the
theatrical cut.
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