--John Kramer, Jigsaw
"You cannot escape the truth."
--John Kramer, Jigsaw
"Ten years ago, in this very barn, a game was played."
--Logan, Jigsaw
Through Jigsaw the Spierig brothers resurrect the enormously successful Saw franchise, presenting a focused detective mystery-thriller in which a new wave of murders that fit the infamous modus operandi of the dead serial killer John Kramer have surfaced . . . and it seems that John himself is somehow still active. The Jigsaw killer may have died long ago in-universe, but this movie that bears his name, far more than the seventh Saw film, is truly about John and his legacy. It atones for the largely awful seventh movie, while also bringing the franchise to life again--and holding promise as a possible stepping stone into a new trilogy. It took me longer to get here than I thought it would, but three months to the day that Jigsaw hit theaters, I've finally reviewed every entry in the series!
Production Values
Even if Jigsaw succeeded on no other level, at the very least it gives fans another Saw experience with great production values, meaning Jigsaw is vastly superior to The Final Chapter in terms of effects, acting, and the script. Gone are the terrible blood effects from The Final Chapter, as is the pitiful writing, the grainy camera, and the presence of bland characters like Matt Gibson. As a major Saw fan, I resented the poor technical quality of the seventh movie when 2-6 were so well-designed, and Jigsaw definitely towers above the seventh one.
The acting is generally immersive and realistic, a welcome relief after Saw VII. Laura Vandervoot and Hannah Emily Anderson both perform very well as Anna and Eleanor respectively, and Matt Passmore has a great final scene that is full of intensity--he definitely has some spectacular moments. Tobin Bell expertly returns to his role, appearing in just a few scenes, but still getting more screen time than he did in The Final Chapter. His appearances are used to great effect, particularly the first time he shows up onscreen, with the film using a clever storytelling device to explain Jigsaw's seeming resurrection.
I want to commend Charlie Clouser for another fitting Saw OST, with tracks like Shotgun and Zepp Eight blending classic Saw tunes with an updated sound. The soundtrack, from the very opening frames, reminds series lovers that this is a Saw movie. It honors the series while evolving, just as the structure of the film does. Those who loved the previous soundtracks will likely love this one too!
Story
(SPOILERS)
A man named Edgar is pursued by police to a rooftop where he grabs a trigger device and says that if he pulls the trigger five people will die. A cop named Halloran arrives, Edgar pulls the trigger, and is shot in the chest by an unknown person as the police shoot the device out of his hand. As the trigger is pulled, a timer activates in a different location, with five people in helmets chained across from mounted but inactive saw blades. The voice of John Kramer, the Jigsaw killer, announces the start of the game, the saws begin rotating, and each person must cut themselves to offer blood and be released from the chains and helmets. But one of them remains unconscious until his body is pulled by the chain almost right up to the saws, the others moving on ahead of him, having completed their initial task.
A jogger notices a body with the same kind of helmet hanging from a bridge framework; as the game progresses, more bodies appear around the city and are examined in autopsies. Coroner Logan and his assistant Eleanor assess the corpses, finding jigsaw-shaped puzzle pieces carved out of them on various locations, and a USB pulled out from one of the cuts has John Kramer's voice on it, saying the games have begun again. Of course, John died years ago in the events of Saw III and his autopsy is shown in Saw IV. The police are baffled as the voice on the USB is identified as Kramer's, blood under the fingernails of one of the bodies is identified as Kramer's, and Kramer's coffin is discovered to hold Edgar's body, not that of Jigsaw.
As the story unfolds, Eleanor becomes a suspect, as she is found to have a secret "studio" where she recreates Jigsaw traps from schematics accessed on the dark/deep web. Logan casts suspicion on Halloran when the autopsy of Edgar yields the same bullet type from Halloran's gun, and all of the victims that appeared around the city have a history with Halloran. Soon jigsaw skin pieces are recovered from his refrigerator.
Eleanor says she thinks she has learned the location of the games, tracing them to a pig barn formerly owned by Jill Tuck, and she leaves with Logan to go there. Halloran follows. He ambushes Logan and Eleanor, yet Eleanor flees, an unknown figure subdues Halloran in the aftermath, and Halloran and Logan soon find themselves trapped in laser collars connected to the walls of an inner room in the barn. Jigsaw's voice tells them that they must confess their offenses, and the voice gives both a choice to go before the other victim by pressing a button assigned to them. Halloran presses Logan's.
Logan is seemingly killed by the lasers, only to get back up after collapsing to the floor when his collar detaches from the wall. It wasn't Eleanor who put them here; it was Logan. He tells of a game played in the barn, ten years before, where he was the victim that stayed unconscious until he almost was at the wall of saws. The barn games shown in the film occurred long ago. Logan replicated part of that game with the victims the police had found in order to kill criminals Halloran had overlooked (or put back on the streets), dug up the body of John Kramer, planted his blood, and planted the pieces of skin in Halloran's house to make it appear that John was somehow alive again. Logan had once accidentally mislabeled X-rays pertaining to John's cancer, but John rescued him from the game at the last second, and he never joined the others--John trained him as his first apprentice. Logan came to hate Halloran for his illicit methods and tendency to allow violent criminals to walk free, and he fulfills his vengeful plot when he kills Halloran using the laser collar.
Intellectual Content
(SPOILERS)
There is not as much philosophizing in this film as there is in some of the others, but some definitely comes up in the third act. As they work to create the reverse bear trap, John tells Logan that they can never approach the games from anger or vengeance. Logan seems to doubt the moral legitimacy of John's desire to rehabilitate rather than punish with the traps, saying that if they don't approach the games with those attitudes then there can be no justice, yet John insists that instead of desiring vengeance they will speak on behalf of the dead. Of course, as I've pointed out multiple times before, John and his disciples only believe the games are just on grounds of emotional preference and fallacies.
John was a philosophical giant (in the sense that he was deeply philosophical, not that he was logically sound), Amanda deeply struggled with change and pursuit of redemption, and Hoffman was a brutal heretic by Jigsaw's standards. Compared to these three big personalities, Logan seems rather tame, however passionate he is. Still, he and John resolve to speak on behalf of the dead and plan more games. Logan doesn't necessarily add anything new at all to the Jigsaw philosophy.
Series Significance
(SPOILERS)
This is a section I have never before included in a review, but because of my love of the Saw franchise I want to say a bit more about the movie. Spoilers will be discussed, so do not read between this and the conclusion section if you want to avoid them. Some of the biggest questions the movie brings up or avoids are 1) why did the other apprentices never talk about Logan, and 2) what happened to Gordon and Hoffman (and Bobby Dagen)?
Logan's military career in Fallujah seems to explain his absence in the other movies. He was the first disciple of Kramer, with Amanda, Hoffman, and Gordon following. His military service does at least provide a possible explanation for why he was never involved in the games near the end of John's life, and for why Amanda, Hoffman, and Gordon never indicate they are aware that he even exists or ever apprenticed with Jigsaw.
The fates of Gordon and Hoffman and the liar Bobby Dagen are not even alluded to, although in one scene a hacksaw is found in a closet within Eleanor's studio--perhaps the one that Gordon used to cut off his foot. I'd have to watch both scenes again to be certain it is the same saw, though. Jill Tuck is mentioned as the owner of the pig farm where John's first game took place and where Logan kills Halloran. And, of course, the death and autopsy of John Kramer are acknowledged. Besides these references to past Saw events and figures, Jigsaw is largely a self-contained narrative that one can enjoy without extensive knowledge of or having seen the past seven films. It does not utilize flashbacks to scenes or events from the other movies. It does not tie up the remaining loose ends from The Final Chapter. Nonetheless, it is still very much a movie in the Saw universe.
What Jigsaw does accomplish is to take elements of other Saw stories and combine them while offering a new story. For instance, the type of reveal that the games shown occurred ten years before the Halloran investigation of the recent crimes is found, on a much smaller scale, in Saw II. The opening traps with the bucket helmets and saws is like one of the first traps in Saw V. And Logan staging his death only to surprise Halloran looks back to the grand twist of the first Saw when John Kramer pretended to be a corpse in the bathroom, only to shock Adam and seal him inside.
Conclusion
Jigsaw both honors series iconography and history while beginning to break away from expected norms. As the film does in other ways, the last words of the villain deviate from franchise tradition. Instead of giving the classic line "Game over," the new Jigsaw successor says "I speak for the dead." Jigsaw definitely shifts the series in a new direction while honoring its core concepts. As a character says, "Jigsaw lives forever through the work of his followers," echoing elements of a statement by Amanda in Saw II. If the franchise continues, it needs to strongly emphasize this. The name Jigsaw is now a legacy, claimed by a movement of dark web followers and a new killer, not merely an alias for one person.
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| Movie poster for Jigsaw. (Photo credit: junaidrao on Visual Hunt / CC BY-NC-ND) |
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/movie-review-saw.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/movie-review-saw-ii.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/movie-review-saw-iii.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/movie-review-saw-iv.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/movie-review-saw-v.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/movie-review-saw-vi.html
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/movie-review-saw-final-chapter.html
Content:
1. Violence: There are scenes involving deaths and dismemberment, but the gore is toned down a lot. Jigsaw likely has about as much gore as the first Saw, which is not much at all.
2. Profanity: "Strong" profanity is used throughout the film.
3. Nudity: A dead woman's breasts are briefly seen during an autopsy.
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