Movie Review - 'Saw V'

Saw V Starring Tobin Bell, Costas Mandylor, and Scott Patterson Directed by David Hackl Rated R

There is a moment early in Saw V that might disorient someone who has followed the series and will certainly confuse someone who hasn't kept up to date. In very quick succession, and with no establishment of what the hell is going on, we see FBI agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) and police detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) with their guns drawn in some seedy warehouse basement. The corpse of Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) is in a hospital bed, and there are other bodies laying around, too.Unfortunately, because Patterson and Mandylor look so much alike, at least upon first glance, you don't know who's who or if they're one in the same. It takes a little time to recall their roles from the previous entry in the series, and Saw V has zero intention of giving you a refresher course. As the movie goes along, the roles and the actors become more distinguishable, but even though I knew where the series was taking Hoffman after the events of Saw IV, there was a little time when I couldn't tell which guy he was. Maybe I'm alone in that, but I doubt it.However, that's the only great mystery Saw V presents us. There is another one of Jigsaw's games, though its design is nowhere near the level of ingenuity that marked three of the prior four films. And the game is secondary, anyway, because the struggle is between the two doppelganger public servants, one of them good and one of them turned evil by the criminal mastermind with a penchant for bloodletting.The movie is loaded with recreations that serve as flashbacks. We get a glimpse into how Jigsaw operates, going all the way back to Saw II, but all this does is magnify how little the series has left without him. Still, the fifth movie manages to get by even though Jigsaw died two movies ago. But I can't really see where it goes from here, especially following this screenplay, which is much more unsightly than any of the carnage portrayed.My measuring stick for this franchise is how well they create and execute Jigsaw's latest mousetraps, because the original film is centered on the very practical premise of how one would make an original horror movie for under a million dollars. The solution then, to James Wan and Leigh Whannell, was to chain two characters on opposite sides of one room with the understanding that only one of them gets out alive. Since then, the films have become more convoluted, but with one exception - Saw III - the films had always attempted to resolve a similar setup, involving the sinister puppet master.Saw V does very little of that, and what it does do is not entertaining or compelling or even put together well. It's clumsy and it's a little bit desperate, about what you'd expect from a fifth movie in a series.

Comments

[Albert Ching]

Where's the High School Musical 3 review?

[Get The Big Picture]

Tomorrow. Only selected press was allowed to see that, apparently. I was not selected.

[MDV]

How does it end?

[Vince]

And to second MDV's point, will i believe it?

[Joe Russo]

This installment doesn't do anything new for the franchise. You won't believe how it ends, because its finale mirrors Saw IV. There is no new information. All this picture does is sets up Jigsaw's replacement, and explain that he was being groomed all along. Expository and redundant describe a film that should be thrilling and excruciating to watch. Oh well, there's always next year.....

[Orinn]

I just watched 3 and 4 to be caught up, and then I thought, what the hell are they going to with a 5. Killing Jigsaw was a mistake, or at the very least have a proper apprentice. I was hoping a cult with a sketchbook filled with his design's. OR some crappy copycat trying to be jigsaw only to fail to easy puzzles and spotty craftsmanship. Either way I will wait to see this one again.