So I just saw "Jigsaw", the eighth film in the Saw franchise,
and it was dumb! Now, 2017 has been a pretty fantastic year for movies already.
There's been a lot of films that I was excited for this year, and many of them did live up to the hype,
but there was legitimately no film the entire year that I was more excited for than "Jigsaw",
not because I expected it to be a good movie or anything,
but because the series has gotten so ridiculous that I was super excited to see where they would go next.
What crazy new excuse could they possibly have to continue this franchise when the main villain of the series has been dead for half of it?
There are just so many ridiculous things about the timeline of this series that I was excited to see them screw it up even more.
Now if you've never seen "Saw" 1-7 and don't really feel like subjecting yourself to all of them,
I actually made a YMS review on the whole series back in 2012 that explains pretty much everything that happens.
It is possibly one of the better resources to help you out if you find yourself confused,
because, holy shit!, is the plot for this series ever extremely convoluted.
There's a lot of shit going on that is extremely difficult to follow and a lot of shit that just plain does not make any sense.
This new film, "Jigsaw", stays true to the series in that sense,
and many of the explanations that they offer throughout the film do not make any fucking sense at all.
If i were to rank the "Saw" films based on how much I personally enjoyed them,
it would probably go: 1, 6, 7, Jigsaw, 4, 3, 5, 2.
"1" being my favorite because despite a lot of cheese and bad acting,
it does the best job at being a legitimate film with effective scenes and original ideas.
"2" being my least favorite because it's nowhere near the quality of the first, but it's not yet ridiculous enough to be enjoyed as a comedy.
"Saw VI & VII" are massively entertaining, not just for their gore and shock value,
but because of how ridiculous the timeline of the series becomes at that point.
Seriously, "Saw VI & VII" are super fun movies that are great to watch with drunk friends,
but unfortunately if you skip the taxing experience of "Saw II-V", you might not understand anything going on.
If you really enjoy(ed) that YMS review,
please consider supporting on PayPal or Patreon because apparently YouTube doesn't think I should be able to run ads on it. (Link Below)
Now, since this film branded itself as "Jigsaw" instead of "Saw VIII", and it's also been a long time since they've made any "Saw" films,
I was correct in assuming that they would try their best to make a film that didn't require you to watch the first seven
to understand what was going on; although I have to admit that part of me wishes
they would continue being as confusing as possible, because that would be hilarious for me.
It still takes place in the same universe as the other films, and it does have Tobin Bell as Jigsaw,
but for the most part it seems to distance itself in a way that no other Saw film has done.
The movie was more well shot than the vast majority of "Saw" films.
It was nothing amazing and the trailer definitely made it look better than it actually was in that category,
but it was a refreshing level of normalcy after so many films in the franchise had what could only be described as obnoxious directing,
especially "Saw IV", which had what I'd consider to be the most obnoxious scene transitions in any movie ever.
The characters in Jigsaw were not exactly well-written at all,
but they were much more watchable than many of the characters in the franchise,
and I know that's not saying all that much. The entire "Game/Trap" plot line, functioned a lot like "Saw V", which wasn't really all that great.
There was nothing that really pushed the boundaries in terms of making a clever trap.
There were some fun some gore and squeamish moments, but it all seemed rather pedestrian when compared to a lot of the other "Saw" films.
Overall, the movie's watchable, but it's not really all that entertaining, and it's kinda bad,
that is, up until the reveal at the end of the film that explains everything that's been going on with their twist, and it is hilaaaarious!
If you do not wish to have this film spoiled for you, and you would rather see it for yourself,
please click to this point in the video, because I definitely need to talk about this shit.
There's your warning!
3, 2, 1
So, if you've watched the other "Saw" films or even my review of them
You'd know that part of the reason why this timeline gets so h i l a r i o u s
is because of just how many times they've used the "Oh! It turns out someone's been helping Jigsaw the entire time!" twist
At the end of Saw 2 we find out that Amanda's been helping the whole time.
In Saw 4 and 5 we find out that Hoffman's been helping the whole time.
At the end of Saw 7, we find out that Doctor Gordon's been helping the whole time
and the twist at the end of this film is that there is now another character that has also
also
ALSO
a l s o
Also, been helping the whole time :I Like, before Saw 1. This man is a forensic pathologist who we are supposed to believe is trying
To solve the murders throughout the film
But secretly he was the man who was murdering people and doing it in a way that was
Identical to a trap that jigsaw actually made 10 years ago
So as the film cuts back and forth between the characters in the game and people finding in examining bodies
It's basically just one giant stupid trick where they try to make you believe that the characters you actually see die in the film are
The same as the bodies that you see being discovered in the film, when in actuality it's just the main character who is intentionally
Killing people in the exact same way that they died in the scenes that you're actually watching
But they're completely different people so during the game you actually get to see Tobin Bell as "Jigsaw" show up
But at the end of the film they get to go, "Haha, he's still dead! That was just 10 years ago, you dummy!!"
but there's a lot about this that doesn't make any. Fucking. Sense!
Like how "Jigsaw" looks the oldest he's ever been, but this is supposedly before any of the other films
And how there were parts of the game where he was using flat-screen HD TVs
But that supposedly took place before the first film where Dr. Gordon can be seen using a pager?
Also, what was the point of trying to recreate a specific series of murders if nobody even ever knew they happened at all?
Seriously none of the traps or bodies were ever found
Despite the events of this film taking place on a farm owned by "Jigsaw's" wife,
who was being thoroughly Investigated in Saw 4 through 7!
Not to mention they've both been dead for ten years now!
Why do you feel as though you need to recreate the murders in the exact same way,
choosing people who would look identical to those who died ten years ago
If nobody even knew they died or found the bodies!
Who are you tricking other than the audience?
Exactly who in the film was this for?!
In the first room, there is a man who you assume dies, but you don't actually see die
And it is that man who ten years later recreates these murders,
and for some reason
kills a man to act as the body of himself?!
Like, if you didn't die then why did you kill a guy to be the dead body to look like your body?
Why would you need to do that other than just to trick the audience?
Also, they say that "Jigsaw" has been dead for ten years,
But they also say that he was helping "Jigsaw" ten years ago; meaning that the entire events of pre-Saw 1 all the way up
until the end of Saw 4 took place in less than a year??
But that doesn't make any sense!!
When, Dr. Gordan is being interrogated about Amanda, that's FIVE months before he's in a trap
[GORDAN]: "It was five months ago..."
and keep in mind that this new character in Jigsaw has been helping since before Amanda
and before Hoffman; meaning that everything that caused Hoffman to be helping this whole time also had to have been taking place within that same year
including Hoffman engineering his own swinging pendulum death trap
and also the "Jigsaw Murder" is being prevalent enough for him to get the idea to copycat "Jigsaw" in the first place
so all of that plus that five months between Amanda being in a trap Gordon being in a trap
Then by the end of Saw 2 we can see Adam's body and
Dr. Gordon's foot severely decomposed and then Donnie Wahlberg gets trapped at the end of Saw 2 and he's taken captive for six months!
[Mother in Cancer Ward]: "Six months? 'Jigsaw' never kept anyone that long..."
Again, apparently all within around a year. All of Hoffman's origin before Amanda's trap plus five months, plus
decomposition, plus six months, but then there's the flashback in Saw 7 with the guy that wrote the book pretending as though
He was one of the people that survived a "Jigsaw" trap and "Jigsaw" is there in that flashback alive
which means that this flashback happened before Saw 4 -again- all in the same year
But in that flashback the guy's book was already published and widely well received, but before he even wrote the book the "Jigsaw" killings were
so widespread that it gave him the idea to do the book in the first place!
There's no fucking way that all of this shit happened within a year!
Did the writers of this film not watch the previous films?
So yeah, the timeline is pretty fucking butchered as though
it wasn't enough already. Even if you ignore the
flat-screen TVs and the appearance of "Jigsaw's" age and even if they didn't royally screw up the timeline this he is still
incredibly stupid.
Like how did "Jigsaw" know the guy was gonna stick his leg through the floor
How was "Jigsaw" aware of all of these crimes that these individuals committed that apparently law enforcement was not aware of?
You just happened to see that girl steal a person
Also, you knew her identity somehow?
You just happened to know that the guy that sold your nephew his
motorcycle knew that the brakes were faulty before selling it to him?
One of the guys's crimes is that when he was a kid he
was being a drunken asshole
And trying to stand up in the back of a convertible and his friends were like, "No, sit down!"
And he's like "Make me!", but then he falls out, and he's perfectly fine
but his friends swerve into a truck and all crash and die and he lied to the authorities
By trying to pretend as though it was his friend's fault who was driving.
How did you know about any of that?!
And then there's the woman who was apparently "Jigsaw"'s next-door neighbor who smothered her own
baby, and made it seem like her husband did it
She literally just suffocates the baby
and then places its dead body next to her husband who was already sleeping in the bed like
"Oh, no! There's a dead baby next to me. I must have rolled over top of it and smothered it."
How did you know about that?
Are you saying you heard this from inside your house next door
"Yes, I can tell by the way the baby's screams are being muffled that it's a woman doing it with a pillow and not a man
rolling over on top of it."
Also, the baby was not in the bed when the husband went to sleep
He was just sleeping in bed with the baby in a crib somewhere else
How come he never wondered why the baby was put there? Why is neither him nor anybody on the police force asking?
Why she would put the baby in his bed while he's sleeping
By the end of the film our main character who supposedly
Also x3
et. cetera
been helping the whole time,
framed someone else for the recent murders
-the recent murders that were not actually "Jigsaw" killings
But were framed in a way to look identically to "Jigsaw" killings that no one even knew ever happened-
But it's also revealed that the only reason the murders took place was to frame him.
They went with the old
"My wife is dead, and you vaguely had something to do with it
So I needed to get my vengeance on you" kind of thing.
But if the whole point was to just set up this guy for murder and kill him,then why did it need to be
"Jigsaw" related at all?
Why did you feel as though you needed to recreate any kind of murders?
Why not just murder some people and frame him and it has nothing to do with anything else?
I don't understand the need for this connection
And if you're trying to frame him for murder
Then why would you put him in the trap?
Is it not going to look a little odd that his head has been
sliced into six pieces and that he was very
clearly in a trap that someone else forced him to be in?
You can't just pretend like no one's ever gonna find this location now; even though realistically
they should have in Saw 4.
Because at the end of the film you say that that other girl is your perfect alibi and she was just there
Like, you specifically brought her there to trick her into believing that he did it
but not see the part where you admitted that you did it. So we have to assume that this barn will be a part of
the police report at some point, right? How the fuck is any of this going to work out?!
You know I think I actually would have rather had a stupid twist like "Oh! 'Jigsaw' actually never had cancer the whole time and it
was his twin brother that died and not him and he was just hiding for ten years
I mean it would have been ridiculous and hilarious,
but it would also mean that the series would have somewhere to go, because with the reveal of this film
it doesn't really leave many options.
Like, what? You're gonna continue the series with this fuckin' Randy?
This guy who's name I can't even care to remember?
I mean if you make another film, and he's the guy doing everything. I'll still watch it
I guess.
And hopefully half the film can be Tobin Bell flashbacks as always
But part of me was hoping that they'd have some stupid excuse for "Jigsaw" to still be alive or even bring back
Dr. Gordon, I mean that would have been some pretty decent fanservice at least.
Anyway, this movie was pretty dumb and pretty ridiculous, but it was kind of watchable, I guess.
The way that they tried to explain everything was very entertaining
and I can't say that I regret buying a ticket to see this film
I've pretty much got what I paid for I guess and honestly. I'll probably see it again
It's dumb mindless fun that does not make any fucking sense at all and if that sounds entertaining to you
then I would suggest you go see it because honestly it would be pretty fucking funny if they continued the story from here
And I'm giving this one a 5 out of 10
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