Jigsaw – Movie Review

Jigsaw – R
Release Date: Fri 27 Oct 2017

Jigsaw is a soft reboot of the Saw franchise and the eighth film overall. It is directed by brothers Michael and Peter Spierig and was written by Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg.

Although it’s been seven years since the last film (2010’s Saw 3D: The Final Chapter), the film universe rounds it to an even ten. As in the previous films, the narrative is divided between a group of characters trapped in Jigsaw’s game and another group trying to hunt him down.

Jigsaw very much feels like a carefully focused-group mash-up of all of the ideas of the prior films while not providing enough characterization or mythology to move forward with. The later films also suffered from this problem. The body count places too high a demand on time with characters for development. This makes the “game” characters into a group of unmemorable dumbasses who don’t need any kind of clever thinking to solve Jigsaw’s puzzles. Instead, the answers are always plain to see – the characters just refuse to bend to Jigsaw’s will. On the investigation side, the movie is incredibly heavy-handed with making nearly every character a red herring for being a “copycat” Jigsaw. Sure, this random person has a secret studio where they build Jigsaw’s traps – for fun!

By the time the movie’s trademark twist happens you’ll have no one left to root for. I’ll give the movie points for finding a way to bring back Tobin Bell, but overall it’s a squandered opportunity to take the story back to it’s clever ticking-clock roots.

Aaron and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car: