Jigsaw (2017)

 

Here we are, back again with another film in the Saw series.  Jigsaw is directed by Michael and Pete Spierig (Daybreakers and Winchester) and written by Josh Stolberg (Piranha and Sorority Row) and Pete Goldfinger (Sorority Row) so there's hope as we have some new blood here.  Lots of new blood in fact.  Sorry, I couldn't resist the low hanging fruit.  Tobin Bell is the only character to return even though John Kramer been dead for a decade.  Anyone up for more flashbacks?  More of that new blood I've been talking about includes Matt Passmore (Army of One and Come Back to Me) as pathologist Logan Nelson helping detectives investigate what might be new Jigsaw murders.  Callum Keith Rennie (eXistenZ and Case 39) and Cle Bennett (Lucky Day and Organ Trail) portray detectives Halloran and Hunt who must investigate the new Jigsaw "game" that has produced more corpses.  Hannah Anderson (What Keeps You Alive and Lizzie Borden Took an Ax) also plays a pathologist and Logan's partner Eleanor.  Eleanor also reveals to Logan that she is a Jigsaw fangirl which might incriminate her in the new murders.

 

 

Five people are shown in a barn with buckets on their heads and chains around their necks.  The five people are Mitch (Mandela Van Peebles and Mario's son), Anna played by Laura Vandervoort (This Means War and Rabid), Ryan played by Paul Braunstein (American Hangman and Eddie: The Sleepwalking Cannibal), Carly played by Brittany Allen (The Prodigy and What Keeps You Alive) and an unknown unconscious man.  All five players must figure out how to escape their traps and move on to the next one.  Halloran and Hunt keep finding bodies and it is revealed that inside John Kramer's grave is not the body of Kramer but of Edgar Musen.  Munsen is shot and arrested at the beginning of the film and was forced to start the new Jigsaw games.  Later, it is revealed that Logan was responsible for mixing up test results that would have diagnosed Kramer's brain tumor sooner and possibly helped him live longer.

 

 

Ah, a fresh and new approach to the Saw legacy.  Gone is the dingy and dank locations that constantly populate Saw films.  We're wide open here with most of the traps happening in daylight, inside of a huge barn which removes that feeling of claustrophobia from previous films where the games took place in cramped spaces.  It's not until the end of the film when only two are left in the game do we enter a familiar dimly lit small room.  While not a reboot (as originally thought this would be) it's also not a sequel either.  At least not in the way we think of a sequel being in this series.  We don't pick up where the previous film left off.  Filled with twists and turns, Jigsaw opens the series to a new string of events that could in some way influence future films.  Unlike previous films this one feels a little less cruel and the twist ending, that we have loved in the early Saw installments, is back here and I didn't see it coming.  Plenty of gore to be had and the final death might be one of the most gruesome but at the same time the most beautifully filmed death in the Saw franchise.  This is one of those times where a film in a series while probably not luring new fans in it will satisfy the long term fan.  It's definitely not on the level of the first two or three films but considering what we got with the last three films, this is a lot better by comparison.  We will give this three laser cutters out of five.  It gives me hope for Spiral and Saw X.