Saw 3D (2010)

It’s 2010 and everything is being made into a 3-D movie, including the final installment of “Saw”. This is easily the weakest entry in the series. During production, it was decided that this would be the final film and that there wouldn’t be an eighth entry. It’s obvious that there are some different stories ideas that were tossed around because the movie doesn’t feel like it has a real solid story arc like the other films. The theme of redemption and rebirth is completely gone at this point. Detective Hoffman is a madman and a killer.

The strength of the film, compared to the previous few films, is that it focuses on only two storylines instead of several. The new storyline is about Bobby Dagen, a man who claims to have been a survivor of a Jigsaw game and is profiting from his lies. While at a survivors meeting, Dr. Gordon makes an appearance and mocks Bobby on film. Bobby is eventually kidnaped and forced to play a series of “games” that involve his wife and entourage. The first test he survives. The second “game” is for his publicist, where he has to pull a key and hook out by a string that’s in her stomach. She dies. The third “game” is for his lawyer, where Bobby has to lift and hold a heavy weight with his shoulders while his legs are impaled with short spikes; he fails to hold up the weight for 30 seconds and she dies. The fourth “game” involves Bobby’s best friend who it blind folded and has to walk across some thin planks before the timer runs out and hangs him; he dies. The next “game” forces Bobby to pull two of his teeth in order to find the combination of the lock to the door. The final “game” forces Bobby reenact the “game” that he has been lying that he survived; he needs insert hooks into his pictorials and climbing chain in order to connect two extension cords. He falls to the ground when his muscles tear. When the timer runs out, his wife is encased and cooked to death while he watches.

The second storyline is about Detective Hoffman and his attempts to frame Jill as the killer and to get revenge on her and the special affairs agent that turned him in a few years earlier. There is a “game” that involves four racist gang members that draw the attention of the special affairs agent but it’s just a ruse to distract them while Hoffman goes to the precinct and kills everyone. He finally gets to Jill and places the reversible bear trap on her, which goes off, tearing a huge hole in her face and killing her instantly. As Hoffman is leaving one of his lairs, Dr. Gordon and two others in pig suits knock Hoffman out. The big and final twist is that John Kramer nursed Dr. Gordon back to health after he sawed his foot off. It was with Dr. Gordon’s help that the more intricate “games” were set up, and it was his suggestion to use Lynn and Jeff in “Saw 3”. Dr. Gordon was also to protect Jill and if anything happened to her, he was to act with all of John’s revenge. So Dr. Gordon takes Hoffman to the original industrial bathroom, chains him up but tosses the saw out the door, locking him alone in the dark to die. And thus the series ends…