THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When a franchises concludes a story arc, you hope for its era to end on a high note. Sadly, Saw was unable to do just that with their seventh entry.
PLOT
The 2010 sequel dubbed The Final Chapter takes place after the events of the sixth film. It opens up with a Jigsaw trap in the middle of a public square. Two men, Brad (Sebastian Pigott) and Ryan (Jon Cor), are chained to a contraption with three circular saw blades. Above them is a woman they know named Dina (Anne Greene). The men have only one minute to choose who to sacrifice between them or Dina is lowered into the middle saw. Realizing that she isn't worth dying for because she instigates the tension between them, both choose to sacrifice her for the saw that cuts her in half. The main story follows Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) trying to avoid Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) after attempting to leave him for dead. She goes to Internal Affairs officer Matt Gibson (Chad Donella) that Hoffman is the accomplice of her ex husband John Kramer, the original Jigsaw. In exchange for immunity and protection, she promises to provide evidence of Hoffman's crimes. Elsewhere, Hoffman has set up more traps. The first involves a group of white supremacists that are killed in a junkyard. The main trap involves Bobby Dagen, a man who has pretended being a Jigsaw victim, making a profit of his lies with a book he wrote called 'SURVIVE'. He has an hour to complete his first ever game in an hour or his wife Joyce (Gina Holden) will die. The first test involves his publicist Nina (Naomi Snieckus) who is strapped to a chair with four metal rods. He needs to pull a key attached with a fish hook from her mouth in a minute or the posts will impale her throat. But every time she made a sound, the rods would move faster. Although Bobby does retrieve the key, he is unable to stop the machine as the rods kill her. The second test involves his lawyer Suzanne (Rebecca Marshall) who is strapped to a plate in the center of a large metallic wheel in a horizontal position. He now must lift a weight for at least 30 seconds or she'll be impaled by metal rods. As he lifts it, he gets impaled by metal spikes on the side of his body. Unable to hold it long enough, Suzanne is killed in the process. The third involves his best friend Cale (Dean Armstrong). He is blinded by a mask locked into his face, that's also connected to a noose on his neck. In a room with a destroyed floor, Bobby must retrieve a key from the ceiling in a minute or he will be hanged. He does get it but he makes the mistake of tossing it to him. When it falls to the floor, his friend meets his demise. Before he could reach his wife, he has to pull off his wisdom teeth that are etched with combination of numbers needed to get into the other room. After this, the final test begins. He must act out his alleged escape, as in drive hooks in his pectoral muscle and hoist himself above the ceiling to deactivate his wife's chain. He fails when the hooks rip off due to how his muscles were unable to support his weight. Because of this, he must watch Joyce get incinerated. As this game was happening, Hoffman is hunting Jill down. When she is placed in protective custody, he sends a message to Gibson that the game can stop if she is handed to him. Gibson however does deduce the location of where the message was recorded, Crossroads Manufactory, where his life was once saved by him. Scouting the place, he figures out that Bobby's game is at the abandoned Clear Dawn Psychotic Hospital. However, a sent SWAT team gets killed in a gas chamber, set up by Hoffman to keep the game going. When seeing the junkyard, he finds a hidden surveillance room that had the mutilated corpse of one of the victims. Just when realizing that the police station's security camera system got hacked and that Hoffman had snuck into a bodybag, he gets killed by a sentry gun before he can warn anyone. The antagonist does reach to Tuck and kills her with the Reverse Bear Trap.Just as he destroys his hideout and plans to flee the country, he is attacked by masked figures led by Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), who's been a secret accomplice to Kramer since he escaped his game. The film ends with him leaving Hoffman for dead in the same dilapidated bathroom he was trapped in before, announcing GAME OVER.
THOUGHTS
Is it me or did I see it coming how bad this would be when knowing this was released in 3D? I'm starting to think so whenever I think about the marketing promos. When I first binge watched this franchise in 2020, I started to have excitement that I made it to this point. It disappoints me to say that this one was not worth the time. I want to respect the direction that writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan had in mind, but director Kevin Greutert fails to give it proper execution. It may have sounded good on paper but nowadays, this looks like fan fiction that should've been untouched. I was in relief that I didn't see this in 3D, but that didn't save me from bad visual effects. While the traps here are indeed brutal, I'd appreciate the gore if the 3D wasn't involved. I mean I don't understand why 3D horror was a thing. Thank God it's not anymore. The theme of appreciating life is still present but this time, it is overshadowed by the fact of how lying is discrediting to yourself and those you wrong. That message is noticed with the presence of Bobby Dagen. We're supposed to hate him because of how greedy he acted to get wealth, with the act of dishonesty. It sounds cruel to say he deserved to be punished, but that is true. However, thanks to the performance of Sean Patrick Flanery, we completely approach him the way did with William Easton: He is selfish but that doesn't mean he ain't human deep down. He never meant for anyone else to suffer from his biggest sin. Every time he lost someone that he cared about, you see that he does regret his actions. This is just more proof that this game strangely works on people. He definitely gets it the hard way when the most innocent victim in this franchise is his wife who had no idea he was lying. I want to appreciate the pros, but there are way too many cons that prevent me from doing so. First off, I've enjoyed Tobin Bell as John Kramer throughout this franchise, but his scene with Bobby was the most forced compared to other things that's been displayed onscreen. I know we needed some kind of connection that sounds clever, but that scene was far from that. I also don't understand the need of a public trap. Sure it would be an intense opening, but besides the bad acting, it's boring to witness that we have no one to truly root for. I mean it's kind of weird how quick Brad and Ryan accepted the consequences of letting Dina die. I know she was using them, but damn they were so un phased of their decision. That whole thing was weirder than the fact Hoffman pulled off setting up this trap in public with nobody noticing or how no one tries to break through the glass and figure out how to save them. I feel like that would be a technical sense of accessory to murder rather than witness. I know skinheads are terrible, but I have to admit that the ones in this movie had a rigged game. About every game has a minute to complete a task but for Evan (Chester Bennington), he only had half the time. I know Hoffman is using this game to distract GIbson, but a fair game should've been set. Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised since he rigged a game before he become an accomplice to John. Of all the traps I dislike the most, I'd have to say The Hangman's Noose is the one that deserves such a title. I don't dig because it comes off way too simple in comparison of every trap the franchise has shown at this point. I even got so pissed with Bobby throwing the key. If he really wanted to save Cale, he should've rushed himself to him. When thinking about Bobby's story, it kept making me wonder what proof did he give to authorities besides his self inflicted injuries. Every survivor likely did and it makes no sense that this would not be investigated. And most importantly, you ruin the first movie when bringing back Gordon. It's ruined because the mystery is now non existent. That is never good because the mystery is what makes movies entertaining. Because of his return, it leads to some questions: How is he not on the news and how does no one recognize him at the group therapy scene? There is always news exposition of a Jigsaw update, but doesn't share that he survived until now. I feel like the twist involving him would've been worthwhile if there was implication of his survival and not think about it until it's too late. If so, we would've gotten a better delivery. And honestly, seeing him at the group therapy almost felt obvious that he was the main accomplice, but I was too dumb to figure it out in first viewing. And I don't even think there should have been a pipe hot enough for him to cauterize his severed leg, even if it's supposed to work. If I gotta keep going on with the shit that don't make any sense, I gotta say it had to have been awkward for actual Jigsaw survivors to have their group therapy sessions broadcasted by Bobby when they're so comfortable with privacy? I had a hard time believing they signed any waiver. And what made Gibson think there is another game anyway? It didn't matter if he was right because he didn't really have proof to back it up. What's dumber than that is how he chose to break through glass with a shotgun, without even checking if that was loaded. The guy was willing to take a stupid risk to get close to figuring out a clue and that bothered me more than the station basically looking empty by the time Hoffman got there. If we gotta keep talking about continuity errors in film, it can't be that hard for anyone to point out how Hoffman's scar is not visible in his video demanding Jill to be handed to him. You can't say he shot this before being stuck in the trap because he had no intention to kill her until after she betrayed him. To get this over with, Saw: The Final Chapter is a bad finale to a slasher franchise that deserves better. I'd insist on not checking this out but if torture porn is your guilty pleasure, than good luck with this one.
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