Let me first inform you that in order for me to properly continue reviewing this series, I will need to spoil every aspect of this movie. So, let's get this show on the road.
SPOILERS AHEAD
So let me first explain Jigsaw's background. Jigsaw is an aging man named John Kramer, who is slowly dying of cancer. He feels that he hasn't truly appreciated his life, so he becomes the Jigsaw killer in order to make others realize the importance of appreciating life. He also has a (ex) wife named Jill, who has a small role in this movie, and a much larger role in one of the future movies.
I'm assuming that you've all seen Saw 2, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Amanda is revealed to be working for Jigsaw. She's the one who abducts the victims and places them in the traps, and Jigsaw is the mastermind who designs the traps. Because his cancer is becoming worse, Jigsaw takes a kind of side role in this movie and lets Amanda design her own traps, all of which she has purposely made inescapable for the victims.We'll touch more on that later.
It's like if Jim Carrey and the bassist from Metallica had a baby.
Here comes the plot! Amanda kidnaps a female doctor named Lynn and brings her to a room where Jigsaw is lying on a hospital bed, made immobile due to his cancer. Jigsaw knows that he is about to die, but he wants to go out with a bang. That bang is the the main character of the movie, Jeff, and his journey through an abandoned meat packing plant, which is set up by Jigsaw and Amanda as one giant trap, as well as a test for him. Jeff's unappreciation for life comes from his son's death 3 years ago at the hands of a drunk driver, who is only sentenced to six months in prison for his crime. This makes him act isolated towards everyone and he obsesses over getting the man who killed his son the proper punishment, severely neglecting his younger daughter in the process.
The game is simple: Lynn stays in the room with Jigsaw to make sure that he doesn't die. If Jigsaw dies or if Lynn gets out of range, a trap collar around her neck will fire five shotgun shells into her skull. The collar will also go off if Jeff fails any of the tests he comes across in the meat packing plant.
Jeff's tests include all of the people who were responsible for his son's death, a woman who saw the crime and didn't do anything, the judge who gave the killer only six months in prison, and finally, the killer himself. They all die.
But the girl dies in a sexy, naked kind of way.
The movie ends with Jeff completing his tests, entering the room with Jigsaw and Amanda, Amanda shooting Lynn in the back, Jeff shooting Amanda in the neck, Amanda dying because Jigsaw doesn't like her inescapable traps, Jeff killing Jigsaw with a circular saw, and Jigsaw pushing play on a tape recorder, which reveals that by killing him, Jeff failed his test because Jigsaw was the only person left alive who knows where to find his missing daughter. The shotgun collar goes off, killing Lynn, and Jeff is now locked in the room forever. That may have been the longest run on sentence I've ever written.
There's also some cops investigating stuff. This series likes to introduce more and more cop characters, even though nobody cares about them or wants to see them capture Jigsaw. There are 3 cops in this movie: Rigg, Alison, and Hoffman. They were the partners of the main cop from Saw 2, whose son got kidnapped. That's it. That's all they do. They only show up in the first 10 minutes of the movie to tell the audience that the trap they're investigating doesn't match Jigsaw's modus operandi of giving his victims a chance to escape, further setting up Amanda's role. Rigg is the main character of the next movie, but that's for another time, and Hoffman has a huge role in the next few movies, but that's also for another time. Alison gets captured 5 minutes later by Amanda and killed by one of her inescapable traps. So, that's Saw 3.
SPOILERS CONCLUDED
Fun fact: The red on that coat? That shade of red came from actual drops of Tobin Bell's blood that was put into the printer ink for 1000 of these promo posters. Cool, huh?
So what did I think of the conclusion to the original trilogy? Well, like most second sequels, it doesn't hold a candle to the first two. In fact, this movie is a major step down when compared to Saw 2. Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith are the only two actors in the movie who are halfway decent, and even they seem like they're tired of the roles. The guy who plays Hoffman is good, but we only see him for like 5 minutes. There's a lot of added drama between Amanda and Lynn in side scenes that doesn't seem necessary. It really just takes away from the main focus, which of course is the traps. For a series that makes it's driving point be as much gore as possible and not much else, the Saw franchise sure a ridiculously complicated plotline/mythos. Of course, this is explained more in the future movies.
The traps and gore in this movie are off the charts. A guy mutilates himself and then explodes, a girl burns her hand off and then gets her ribcage torn out, a girl gets her head blown off by the shotgun collar (another staple trap in the series), a girl gets frozen solid, a guy gets his head blown off by a real shotgun, and a guy gets his limbs and neck rotated in vices and snapped apart.
Hey, the black guy wasn't the first to die this time!
The girl getting her ribcage torn out is one of Amanda's inescapable traps, called The Angel. If you ask people what their favorite trap of the Saw movies is, most people will say The Angel. It's a fan favorite because of just how creative it is and how brutal it is as well. Just take a look for yourself, this is one that needs to be seen to be believed.
Saw 3 is definitely not as good as its predecessors, but it's still a decently good gore movie. It's just a shame that all that awesome gore is bogged down with pointless drama and weak acting. I give this movie 5 shotgun shells to the skull out of a possible 10. If you liked the first two, you'll still enjoy this one, but definitely not as much.
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