Saturday 27 August 2011

Saw VI (2009)

THIS REVIEW IS TRYING ITS HARDEST NOT TO SPOIL A SINGLE THING AND HOPEFULLY IT HASN'T, BUT HERE'S A WARNING JUST IN CASE!

I’m shocked I’m about to type this, but here we go: The 6th Saw film is my favourite in the series. Seriously, I am not kidding. When watching the utter tripe we got from the 4th and 5th films, with a lacklustre 3rd film, I thought the last two films would be awful!

It’s weird to think that, as I watch the Saw films, I think it should be a TV show. All of them seem like they should be hour long episodes in an American TV series. The flashbacks remind me of Lost and the crime segments remind me of CSI. Yet if it was an American TV show then it would have been cancelled because of Saw IV being so badly received, so not all would have turned out well for it.

I honestly don’t want to spoil any of the plot for this movie. It is great as a standalone piece of cinema. What I can say is the general premise of the film, as well as the opening. Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) has got away with pinning the Jigsaw copycat killings on Agent Strahm and is now assisting Jill (Betsy Russell) in carrying out John Kramer’s (Tobin Bell) final requests. This consists of making a man play a game where he has to decide on how much he values other people’s lives. Even saying that I have spoiled it slightly, but it’s okay, it is deeper than that.

The tests in this film are pretty damn good. They are simple, yet effective, not unlike the very first film’s game. They all consist of difficult decisions that weigh heavily on the subject’s mind when trying to figure out what to do in such a short period of time. The tests are honestly extremely suspenseful, unlike the tests in the other films, and you feel sorry for the man when he is trying to complete them.

The directing in this film has got a thousand times better, so much so that I feel I have overcome my epilepsy and motion sickness. The acting is so much better and the twists make sense and are suspenseful. It’s hard for me to comment on anything in this film without saying “I really liked it.” Well, Hoffman is transparently evil, but I’m OK with that.

Just... go watch this film. It’s great.

Now to watch the one that had the worst ratings. 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, eh? Pretty bad... Ah well, at least it’s the last one!

Final Verdict: 9/10
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A Note On Ratings

This system is now defunct as I no longer use ratings. However, this is kept here just for older reviews.

I honestly believe that with a 10-point scale you can't gain everything from a review, however this is an easy way to quickly gauge my feelings as well as useful for comparisons.

Some reviews using the 10-point scale like to have 7 as an average for their reviews, however I prefer to use 5 as an average. The following also shows the colour coding I use:

0: May well be the worst thing ever made. Ever.
1-3: It's not good. At all.
4-6:: It's pretty much average. Not good, but not bad.
7-9: It's pretty good, with hardly any faults.
10: It's damn near perfect and may as well have been made by God!