Saw 3 takes off from where we left off in saw 2, with Detective matthews trapped, chained to a pipe in that significant and almost tomb like confine of the bathroom from the first film. This then leads into another series of games, orchestrated by jigsaw, now bed ridden with cancer, and his assistant/apprentice Amanda. They kidnap a doctor and force her to perform surgery on jigsaw, to releive some of his suffering, while at the same time, a father grieving for the accidental death of his son, is put through a series of tests which will test his ideas of revenge and forgiveness. While the first Saw film was a brilliant and tense film, and Saw 2, while upping the brutality stakes was a worthy if moderate follow up, Saw 3, lacks some of the twists and tension used so brilliantly in the first two films, and proceeds to bludgeon the viewer with a round and after round of brutal and at times, gratuitous violence. Im not bothered by that and don't mind blood and gore on-screen (and will give credit for the director and writer for pushing the limits and intensity that an American r-rating would allow), yet Saw 3 bored me pretty much. Whereas the tension built up in the first film was through the idea that one of these guys would eventually use the hacksaw to cut through something other than a chain, saw 3 pummels us with, a guy breaking and snapping his own foot of, a women having her ribcage pulled open, a guy pulling rings out of his skin that have been attached there all in the first twenty minutes, followed by brain surgery with non surgical tools and a man having his legs and arms twisted. In fact it came to the point of the brain surgery scene that i almost laughed as i imagined the filmmakers with a list of what gory scenes they need to do, and ticking it off one by one. Plus the characters are not as well written, the grieving, revengeful father geoff, seems like an idiot at times, and doesn't illicit any sympathy through his own idiocy. Saw 4 will be round the corner for this halloween, all i can hope is that they focus on producing a better story with better characters, and keep the gore just don't pummel us to death with it!!
