SAW VII 3D.

WARNING: Here be potential spoilers for all previous films in the series.

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October 29, 2004. Roughly 9 PM. I sit down on opening night to watch a low-budget horror film called Saw. I have no expectations except that I think it has a fun concept. It's entertaining, but totally predictable. It's now 5 minutes before the movie ends. Jigsaw stands up. My jaw drops. I sit and stare at the credits rolling, dumbfounded.

October 29, 2010. Roughly 4:30 PM. I sit down on opening day to watch a comparatively low-budget horror film called Saw 3D. It's the seventh in the series--and the last. I have seen every other one on opening day, and I wasn't going to stop that trend on the final film (of, at least, this particular chronology). It's entertaining, but totally predictable. It's now 5 minutes before the movie ends. We get our "Hello Zepp." The twist happens. The movie ends. I leave with a huge smile on my face. Why?

This is the Saw movie the loyal fans have been waiting for.

The story picks up where the--believe it or not--first movie left off. If you don't know already what happens next, you probably aren't a fan of the series. Let's just say it involves Dr. Gordon (Cary Elwes). Then we get our first-ever outside, live-audience trap. It's mostly irrelevant to the overall movie. Finally, we continue where Saw VI left off, which shows Jill (Betsy Russell) putting Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) in the Reverse Beartrap and him escaping it. Jill hides and runs to the police, specifically Officer Gibson (Chad Donella), who has a past with Hoffman. Hoffman sets up a semi-game to have Gibson hand over Jill to him in order to stop the main game that is going on. The main game revolves around Bobby (Sean Patrick Flanery), who has gained fame by coming out as a Jigsaw Survivor and leading self-help groups for other survivors. However, as you can probably figure out from the first scene you see him in, he's lying... and he's put in his very own game of survival. Similar to Saws III and VI, he's given the option of saving somebody he knows, but at his own personal pain and loss. What's his goal? To save his wife (Gina Holden), who is chained up at the end of his journey.

There are kinda two and a half story lines going on in this movie. The main one is Bobby's game, but then there's Jill trying to stay protected from Hoffman. Somewhat connected to this is Gibson trying to hunt down Hoffman, as well as figure out a mystery behind the latest "trap" disaster. The story is easily the film's weakest point. Especially in its first 20 or so minutes, it's very jumbled and unfocused. It's trying to do way too much. It wants to stand alone as its own entity, but it can't, because it has a bunch of things to tie up (being the final installment). Bobby's story is good, albeit highly predictable with a hint of "I've seen this before." And you have. As I already said, a guy having to go through a building and save/kill people depending on his own personal strength and/or willpower has already been done twice, both (interestingly) at the end of their respective trilogies. Jill's mini-story and Gibson's story could have been better had it not been for their respective actors' over-acting.

Betsy Russell just screams and freaks out most of the time, while Chad Donella tries as hard as he can to taste that scenery. Besides them, though, everybody else is pretty average (for this series). Really, that's all I've got on the acting. If you've made it this far into the Saw series, it's most likely you're not looking for Oscar Gold.

What you really want to hear about are the traps. Oh man, there are some good ones. The "outside" trap at the beginning is cool (and actually darkly comic by the end of the scene). Unfortunately, this scene bares almost no purpose for the rest of the movie. It's referenced one other time (possibly two, if you can infer something later, but there's no proof). Other highlights are the "car" trap and the "throat" trap (which actually made me cringe). The others are really good, too, but I don't wanna spoil it by getting into them all. I don't really think I was disappointed by any of the traps in the movie. They were all relatively bloody and creative, which is all any Saw fan can ask for. They also tied nicely in with the sins of those in them (and had nothing to do with Jigsaw's personal history), something the last few films have been lacking.

Speaking of anything a Saw fan can ask for, the one thing that keeps bringing fans back is the continuity. Say what you will about the bloodiness of the films, but the continuity of this series is freakin' genius. All the backstory and inter-connectedness is so good. However, I can't talk about the rest without getting into spoiler territory, so I'm gonna put up some tags now.

SPOILER ALERT (FOR THE ENDING)



Dr. Gordon's return has been pretty much the biggest fan request since the first two films. What really sparked the Gordon theorists (myself included) was the limping figure who surgically implanted a key behind that one guy's eye at the beginning of Saw II. And it just escalated from there. I always said that the only way this series could end--and a lot of fans agree--was with Dr. Gordon coming back, showing himself as having helped John Kramer, giving us flashbacks to all the other films of how he did so, and ending back at the bathroom. And you know what? That's exactly what we got. If you're a major Saw fan like me, this ending wasn't a twist. It was fan service. And I loved it. It made the rest of the film even better simply for having that ending. Also, we finally get to see the Reverse Beartrap in action. How awesome is that?



SPOILERS DONE


The only other thing I wanna talk about is the story theme. Every one of the films after the first has had a main theme. The second was (arguably) patience. The third was forgiveness. The fourth was trust. The fifth was truth... or teamwork... or something. The sixth was choices. So what was the seventh? I think it's humility. But like the sixth, there was a strong message to go along with it. The sixth's played on the healthcare system. This one played on the recent rise in popularity in fake celebrities. For instance, the dude who wrote the fake memoir and had Oprah pimp it on her show as truth... or balloon boy... or anybody who has used tragedy as a stage for fame and popularity. And then, to take it even further, the American fascination with granting them that popularity (which is really all that "outside" trap was about).

Overall, it was an adequate film. Was it the best in the series? No. That'll always be the first one. But was it the worst? No... I don't think it even came close. It's somewhere in the middle. However, that being said, while the overall film might not be totally strong, the ending is definitely one of the best. So in summation... iffy story, strong traps, great ending... to both the movie and the series as a whole.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. I refuse to call it purely Saw 3D, hence the VII in the title. It won't be 3D on DVD, and Saw 2D is just stupid... so they'll have to change it to Saw VII.)

News: Cary Elwes to Reprise Role of Dr. Gordon in Saw 7.

Yes! Yes! It's happened! It's finally happened! After 6 long years, they're finally doing it! Cary Elwes is returning to the Saw series in Saw 7 as Dr. Gordon! Fans (myself included) have been waiting for this moment since the first movie ended... and then it only grew after rumors began circulating with the second movie and how it was Gordon on the video tape, etc.

The seventh film is supposed to be the end of the series, and what a better way to end it than giving the fans what they wanted? Dr. Gordon is back... and he's most likely a Jigsaw accomplice. But you know what? I wouldn't care, because that's been the rumor since the beginning, and even if the twist is that obvious, I would welcome it.

Page-To-Film: The Princess Bride.

The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies. It has some great dry wit, humor, memorable characters and lines. So for a long time I was wary of reading the book it was based on, simply by the almost always true rule that the book is better than the movie. I didn't want the movie to be ruined by reading the book. But now I've read the book... and I don't think I had all that much to worry about.

As usual, let me start off by discussing the book. Like the movie, the book presents itself with two narratives (though the book's first narrative is a bit different). In the book, William Goldman sets up a gimmick. As a boy, William Goldman loved sports, had ADHD, and had no use for books. But then he came down with Pneumonia, and his father decided to read him a book called The Princess Bride, an epic Florinese novel by a man named S. Morgenstern. The book changed his life. He becomes an avid reader and, later, an author himself. He has his own wife and son now (who he's constantly degrading, but we'll get to that later), and he wants his son to experience The Princess Bride like he did. But his son couldn't even get through chapter two. And when Mr. Goldman sits down to read the book, he discovers why: this isn't much at all like he remembered it as a boy. There are endless pages of Florinese history and pointless passages of description that the scholars see as classic satire, but which he sees as dull. So Goldman sets out to write an abridged version of the book, the "good parts" version, cutting out all that pointless or dull stuff. And this is the book's gimmick. Every now and then within the book, there are short interruptions (in italics) where Goldman explains something has been cut and why, or he'll give a story of why his father had skipped these passages in reading to him in the first place and the conversations they had at these points in time.

But we also have the "main" story, which is that of true love, adventure, etc. I'm not really going to bother explaining it because, well, if you don't know the story of The Princess Bride, shame on you.

So how is the book? It's pretty good. The first 30 or so pages, though, is pure ADHD setup of the gimmick, bouncing back and forth between stories of Goldman's life--childhood and adult--and how he both learned to love reading and how he got to this current point in his life. But then it picks up and the real story begins.

The writing style is something you'll either love or hate. There are a lot of fun "statistics" (much like the movie's "there have been 5 great kisses...", which actually is in the book, though around the middle instead of the end). He also uses an incredibly amount of polysyndeton (where he connects many things with 'and' and it seems like a run-on sentence, when it fact it's just a really long one. It's a stylistic thing that most authors don't use anymore. You mainly see it in older works anymore. Hemingway did it frequently, as well). And there are a lot of parentheticals where it'll say something like (this was before THIS but long after THAT), some of which weren't historically accurate, some of which were, but that was the point (at least according to the abridged notes). And then there are the abridged notes themselves, which I didn't find nearly as annoying or tiring as I've read in other reviews. In fact, the majority of them end up in the movie in some form or fashion (with the sick grandson/grandfather bits).

There was really only one thing that surprised me about the book: it was mean. From either characters or Goldman himself, there was a surprising amount of misogyny, superficiality (primarily with women), racism, anti-Semitism, cynicism, and just all around insult-tossing. Honestly, the mix of the "true love" stuff, "perfect beauty" talk, and mistreating of women, there were numerous times I kept flashing back to Twilight, which was really rather painful to even think about making that comparison. Though, thankfully, the difference is that William Goldman can actually write, and write very well. And his characters are actually likeable--when they aren't being uncharacteristically angry for, sometimes, no reason. And that was another strange thing. There were few times in the movie where the characters seemed angry or upset. In the book, they got angry quite a bit, yelling, insulting, etc. Though some of the "angry" lines went to the screen and were acted with wit instead of anger, which is much better, in my opinion.

And to top it all off, the book has a horrible ending... if you can really call it an ending. The "Princess Bride" story just kind of ends (and the "unabridged" ending that's shown is also terrible and such a downer), but it ends with more abridged notes after that... which ends with such a cynicism that it nearly destroys the feel good "true love conquers all" mood of the rest of it.

But then we have the movie. If the book is the abridged "good parts" version of the S. Morgenstern work, then the movie is the "good parts" version of the abridged work. And ironically, the movie was also written by William Goldman. But besides even the writing, the casting is perfect. Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Wallace Shawn, Christopher Guest, Chris Sarandon, Billy Crystal (et al)... perfect.

Now, don't get me wrong, in retrospect, there are some things better about the book, and some things better about the movie. But for the most part, this is an incredibly close adaptation. Some lines were altered from the book for the movie just slightly (mostly when things had to be condensed), and for the better. But there were also entire lines and scenes that were a bit different from the book that I actually prefer in the film (most specifically, how Westley presents the story of the Dread Pirate Roberts to Buttercup both before and during the Fire Swamp... in the book, it's not even brought up until after Buttercup realizes the man in black is Westley and they're in the Fire Swamp).

So what did the book do better? Character backgrounds. The movie, of course, briefly touches on Inigo's history in terms of his father and his revenge. But there's so much more in the book. Not to mention Fezzik's story is almost all but removed entirely (there are certain points where you can get bits and pieces, such as Fezzik's nearly indiscernible speech to Westley about fighting one person versus groups, or Vizzini threatening to send him back to Greenland). And because Fezzik's character is played down a bit, there's a line at the end that doesn't make too much sense and seems out of place, where Inigo says "You've done something right." Also, I was surprised how how much more rhyming there was in the book than the movie. But I'm rambling now.

Buttercup, Vizzini, Humperdinck, and Count Rugen also have more details to them than the movie grants. Actually, the movie takes what has to be the first 100 or so pages of the book and condenses it down into about 7 minutes. And what else to these characters have in common? They're actually less likable (including Buttercup) in the book. For Buttercup, that's a bad thing, but for the latter three, it's good... for the book, anyway. Primarily Humperdinck and Rugen, they seem much more villainous and dastardly in the book. Rugen is more calmly psychotic (he's really a great and disturbing character, and Christopher Guest played him brilliantly for what he was given). And Humperdinck's hunting skills are hugely downplayed in the movie.

In fact, that brings us to the biggest cut/change from book to film. The book's Zoo of Death becomes the film's Pit of Despair (not to mention The Albino's personality shifts completely for the little screen time he has, though I think for the better). The Zoo of Death is a 5-level containment area, where each level gets more and more dangerous. Humperdinck keeps the world's most dangerous animals there, and depending on what he feels like hunting at the time, he'll have The Albino go and get it for him, and he'll hunt it then and there. The only empty level is the fifth level, saved for the most dangerous animal, which he hasn't discovered yet. Turns out, this is where Westley is held later, what the movie turns into the Pit of Despair. Though the only real reason to have kept it in the movie would be the scene where Inigo and Fezzik have to travel through it to get to Westley, though those descriptions in the book were rather confusing and not nearly as exciting as it could have been (there were hippos and lions, and they end up fighting a giant snake and some bats).

All in all, the book is a good companion piece to the film, filling in some blanks to help things make more sense (though they made sense to me until I read the book, then I realized that there were just some things that were only touching the surface of what was really there). Of course, there are more things than I've mentioned, but nothing drastically important.

I suppose when looking at the two, I must say that the movie is better than the book. The movie does have some great things in it, primarily the more extensive character details, but the best parts of the book come in the humor and dialogue, most of which comes off word-for-word in the movie (seriously, as I said, this was a close adaptation). I did like the statistics in the book, though. If you like/love the movie, I'd suggest reading the book at least once. It really is a really good book. I just happen to prefer the movie.

Five Days Of Saw: Saw.

It was a movie that started a franchise; a film that I felt was so freakin predictable that I was blown out of my seat by it’s stunning ending. Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) and Adam (Leigh Whannell) wake up in a grungy, filthy bathroom, chained by their ankles on opposite ends, and with a body in the middle of the room in a puddle of blood and a gun in his hand. They discover that they’re in a game set up by Jigsaw, a man who sets ungrateful people up in fatal traps/situations in order to get them to further appreciate life to its fullest. Along for the ride are the paranoid Detective Tapp (Danny Glover), the hospital orderly Zep (Michael Emerson), Detective Kerry (Dina Meyer), Detective Sing (Ken Leung), and a list of other victims, including survivor Amanda (Shawnee Smith). But the current situation shows Dr. Gordon and Adam that they have until a certain time to follow the rules set up, and the rules are thus: Dr. Gordon’s wife and daughter are being held captive, and if he wants to be set free and see them again, he must find a way to kill Adam before time runs out. And how can he get free if he needs to? Well, there’s a pair of hacksaws that can be used to cut off your foot and set you free…

When I first saw this movie, I thought I had it figured out before I even reached the halfway point. I thought it was going to end like every other Hollywood horror movie, wherein the twist at the end was overly simple to figure out, the good guys would get free, and everything would end just fine. Boy was I wrong. Not only did nothing end happily ever after, but the twist ending quickly joined what I feel is the top five twist endings of all time.

The movie is in no way, shape, or form torture porn, as most ignorantly label it. Hell, it’s only moderately gorier than your weekly episodes of CSI. The traps in this movie are pretty tame, especially in comparison to the later movies. And it isn’t killing for the sake of killing. Jigsaw is actually a pretty well thought-out character (again, especially as shown in the later films), and he only sets traps up for people who are wasting away their lives in order to teach them appreciation and self-respect. This movie is intelligent horror, not brainless blood and death.

The acting is usually the wobbly ground for most people. Either Cary Elwes or Leigh Whannell are the big complaints, but I personally didn’t see any major issues with either of them. And for two guys with thick foreign accents (British and Australian, respectively), they both held American accents nicely (though if you pay close attention to the opening scenes, you can hear Leigh break accent once or twice). I also think Michael Emerson can play a really intense character no matter what he’s doing (see: LOST).

And then there’s the cinematography and music. The way the camera is used in these films, along with editing techniques, is like an art form (well… it is… but you know what I mean). From the intensity of the Reverse Bear Trap scene with Amanda to the now patented “Seizure flashback” that occurs at the end of each film, the camera/editing is done masterfully. Coincidentally, as I write this, the main Saw theme started playing on my playlist, just in time for me to bring up the music! The main theme is now classic, to me. It’s even being used in other film trailers (much like another modern classic theme from another movie, Requiem for a Dream). I really adore this theme song, from it’s slow build to it’s huge crescendo, increasing and increasing further until the massive shocking end, then BAM, it ends, just like the film. Thank you Charlie Clouser for creating such a hauntingly amazing theme.

So overall, this is one of my favorite horror/suspense films. It has a great story, great cinematography, great editing, great music, and a great ending. There’s really not much else I can say about this first film. I really recommend it.

Royale With Cheese

The following segment involves spoilers:

Questions Raised Thus Far:

- What's with all the pig stuff?

- Who the heck was the guy in the drill-to-the-neck trap and what did he do?

- Does Jigsaw just let Amanda go live her life now that she survived?

- What the heck ever happened to Dr. Gordon's wife and daughter?

- What the heck ever happened to Dr. Gordon?

- Does Adam just die of starvation, dehydration, and/or blood loss?