Shawn's Saw V Review

2008 Movie #118 - Saw V

I remember way back when the first Saw movie was months away. I was telling everyone about the premise and how awesome it was. Everyone pretty much agreed it sounded like a really cool movie. For the most part, all those same people agreed that the first movie was really good. Then something happened. The movie did really well. Then a new one had to come out every single year. It became more and more about the gore and the traps than about telling a good story, which I still maintain the first movie had. Well I haven't flat out hated any of the Saw movies, including this one, usually the best compliment I can give is "well it didn't suck." And Saw V...well it didn't suck.

Saw IV was a little angering, with a twist ending that felt like a huge cop-out. Some of the traps were cool and the movie itself, well it didn't suck, but the whole thing felt like just buying time before having to explain things. The fifth one addresses this a little more, giving us more of a story and background and at least filling in a few of the story holes that IV left us with. Of course it also gives us some new ones since we know damn well VI is coming next year. So the storyline, while thin, is decent enough and a lot better than IV had to offer. There is one scene that is nearly 10 minutes of straight dialogue and it's surprisingly strong. The highlight of the movie I would say.

Of course everyone these days is pretty much just in it for the traps. The traps here are alright. The pendulum one is cool but seriously how in the fuck was that built? That question gets even bigger when you find out the circumstances in which it was built. After that trap none of them are that bad until one involving buzzsaws and a beaker. I would say this one ranks up there with the needle put and the Rack from Saw III as one of the more gruesome traps the series has offered. The final "trap" is also quite something. So the gore is there, but we've seen worse. The same goes for the traps themselves. I'm curious how many more they can come up with because it's starting to look like they've drained the well. The box trap is so simple you keep waiting for the big gruesome twist to it, which kind of comes but not becasue of the trap. Anyway, the ideas for traps seems to be getting near the bottom.

The acting is for the most part, pretty bad. Tobin Bell of course does fine and the two lead agents do alright too. Some of the 5 people in the game though are just terrible, with some of the worst acted lines I've heard in quite some time. Of course this is nothing new to the series so what do you expect I guess. After the first one, maybe even the 2nd and third to some extent, nobody expects good acting anymore.

As has become the standard since Part III, there are some cool throwbacks to the old movies. Of course they just assume you've seen them so if you're new to the series, or haven't seen the older ones in a while, you're not going to understand anything about what the fuck is going on. Also I really wish I could have recorded the conversation I just had with my girlfriend because I was going over what should be a simple plot point in these movies but had to reference about 19 different moments from each movie to get my point across. Perhaps the plot has gotten just a wee bit convuluted.

Of course it woudn't be a Saw movie without some sort of twist ending, and this movie has some. This isn't a spoiler, you know the drill. The twist is revealed and we hear that same music from the first one (which was an awesome twist ending by the way) play during a bunch of fast cuts from the movie. For this one, the twists were a let down. They weren't frustrating like they were at the end of IV, but just not great. One of them you should be able to see coming easily from the first few moments of the game. The other I was actually hoping would go a different way, the exact opposite way it went. I don't want to say too much but had the ending been the opposite of what happens, I would actually be pretty excited for the sequel.

Overall, I still enjoy this series enough to stick with it. It's gone from actually good horror movie, to decent sequels, to guilty pleasure. It's better than the fifth entries in just about any other horror franchise I can think of so hey, it has that. And well, it didn't suck.

** 1/2 / 5