More of the Same

With more of the same plot deficiencies that lead to more of the same boring conclusions that ultimately set up another useless film, “Saw VI” – without shying away from the offending traits –is just one more flick that is created just for kicks and for money.

The sixth installation of the “Saw” franchise is less than mediocre – it is just plain boring and unoriginal. After seeing the same gory traps that the victims are in and the same useless twists, it seems as though the torture is not brought to the characters, but to the people sitting in the theater.

With Special Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) dead, Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) has emerged as Jigsaw’s unchallenged successor. However, when the FBI gets closer to Hoffman, he is forced to set a game in play that will help the audience understand Jigsaw’s (Tobin Bell) grand scheme.

The film starts out with the usual gory traps with people chained up, and one man has to make a decision on who lives and who dies. Out of all the “Saw” films, this opening has to be the goriest, but at the same time, the least intelligent and most farfetched. The problem is that there is a time limit of one minute here and the end result is far too obvious. But, of course, the last second ticks away, and the gory kill occurs as the “Saw VI” title pops up on the screen. The unrealistic part of this whole deal is that the actors involved in this part of the film (as well as the rest of the movie) are terrible at eliciting the fear of a true life and death situation.

Even though this is a movie, real-life audiences might tell themselves that they’d rather die than go through the pain and torture that these people did. Unfortunately, none of this looked even remotely believable, making the result more snore-inducing than frightening.

The action in “Saw VI” did not pick up the way the other “Saw” films did – it was slow and uninteresting. The acting did not help, either. Even Bell seemed out-of-place, especially involving flashback scenes with his wife, Jill (Betsey Russell).

In the past “Saw” films, there was that sense of urgency to uncover the final twist of the climax, but in when the twist came in “Saw VI,” it was quite obvious what was going to happen. It was as though the writers were careless in executing a smart story that would entice the fans and keep them on the edge of their seats. However, it just created another open doorway to how “Saw VII” will possibly play out next October.

Another “Saw” film in the works does not mean that expectations for it should be great. Rebuilding the franchise wouldn’t even work, particularly since six “Saw” movies are enough. It seems that, like the world, money is what makes the “Saw” franchise go around, but the real price is paid by the viewers, who get ridiculous plotlines that focus more on how to set up the next sequel instead of creating a movie that fans would enjoy.