Seven it is not.
At the incessant urging of a coworker I watched the movie Saw. “You’ll love it!” he said. “It’s just like Seven.” He assured me. I think Seven is a great movie; liked everything about it. It’s one of the reasons I can’t write off Brad Pitt as just another pretty face du’jour. He actually makes some good movies (ie. A River Runs Through It and Fight Club).
Saw is what Seven would have been if it didn’t have Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Gwenyth Paltrow in the cast.
The plot was solid although familiar. A mysterious serial killer, The Jigsaw, devises elaborate torturous scenarios to teach his victims the value of life by forcing them to choose between hurting themselves or others to stay alive.
The torture scenarios were clever. In one particularly gruesome scene The Jigsaw’s sole surviving victim is forced to impale a live man with a scalpel to retrieve a key. The key unlocks the iron-jawed face mask that she was forced to wear. If triggered, the jaws will snap open causing her head to explode like an over ripe melon.
The locations and music were sufficiently eerie to contribute to the overall sinister tone of the film. The special effects offered standard slasher film gore with one notable exception. At the movie’s climax one of the victims chooses to saw his foot off at the ankle just above the shackle that chains him to the wall. We see him vigorously sawing, screaming, and writhing, but the point of contact between leg and saw is just off camera. We never see the saw contact skin nor do we get a glimpse of the resulting bloody stump. There is a decomposing foot on the DVD cover. The name of the freaking movie is Saw! How can you not include the foot in the actual movie!?! At least give me some blood splatter when he opens an artery. Something.
What kept this movie from being really good were the sub-par acting performances turned in by several of the cast members. Cary Elwes, of The Princess Bride fame, was simply awful as Dr. Lawrence Gordon. He just doesn’t seem to portray fear well. His demeanor doesn’t match the situation until he starts sawing his foot off at the end of the film. Its like everybody else is in mortal fear and he’s doing “The Claw” schtick from Liar Liar. While we’re at it as long as Danny Glover wasn’t taking this project seriously couldn’t they drop in a quick, “I’m getting too old for this” for all the Murtaugh fans out there. Is that too much to ask? Finally, Michael Emerson executes the worst limp ever captured on film as the mortally wounded Zep Hindle.
When it was all said and done I couldn’t help but think that James Wan and Leigh Whanell wrote a good script they were just done in by poor casting. It’s a shame because this movie had real potential.
On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 6.
Saw is what Seven would have been if it didn’t have Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Gwenyth Paltrow in the cast.
The plot was solid although familiar. A mysterious serial killer, The Jigsaw, devises elaborate torturous scenarios to teach his victims the value of life by forcing them to choose between hurting themselves or others to stay alive.
The torture scenarios were clever. In one particularly gruesome scene The Jigsaw’s sole surviving victim is forced to impale a live man with a scalpel to retrieve a key. The key unlocks the iron-jawed face mask that she was forced to wear. If triggered, the jaws will snap open causing her head to explode like an over ripe melon.
The locations and music were sufficiently eerie to contribute to the overall sinister tone of the film. The special effects offered standard slasher film gore with one notable exception. At the movie’s climax one of the victims chooses to saw his foot off at the ankle just above the shackle that chains him to the wall. We see him vigorously sawing, screaming, and writhing, but the point of contact between leg and saw is just off camera. We never see the saw contact skin nor do we get a glimpse of the resulting bloody stump. There is a decomposing foot on the DVD cover. The name of the freaking movie is Saw! How can you not include the foot in the actual movie!?! At least give me some blood splatter when he opens an artery. Something.
What kept this movie from being really good were the sub-par acting performances turned in by several of the cast members. Cary Elwes, of The Princess Bride fame, was simply awful as Dr. Lawrence Gordon. He just doesn’t seem to portray fear well. His demeanor doesn’t match the situation until he starts sawing his foot off at the end of the film. Its like everybody else is in mortal fear and he’s doing “The Claw” schtick from Liar Liar. While we’re at it as long as Danny Glover wasn’t taking this project seriously couldn’t they drop in a quick, “I’m getting too old for this” for all the Murtaugh fans out there. Is that too much to ask? Finally, Michael Emerson executes the worst limp ever captured on film as the mortally wounded Zep Hindle.
When it was all said and done I couldn’t help but think that James Wan and Leigh Whanell wrote a good script they were just done in by poor casting. It’s a shame because this movie had real potential.
On a scale of 1 to 10 I give it a 6.
posted by Pudge | 2:28 PM
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