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Directed By
David Hackl
Written By:
Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
Cast:
Julie Benz, Meagan Good, Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Scott Patterson, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russell, Carlo Rota, Mark Rolston, Al Sapienza, Greg Bryk, Samantha Lemole, Alex Revan, Sheila Shah, Dana Sorman, Laura Gordon
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Saw V (2008)
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Movie Review by Chris
October 25th, 2008
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'Saw V' is a major dissapointment for me and other die hard Saw fans around the world. It is by far the weakest film in the series and it makes us all lose hope for the final two films that are set to release on Halloween for 2009 and 2010. David Hackl is the new director for the fifth entry in the horror series and he shows just how bad you can mess up a good series. Darren Lynn Bousman had left the Saw series after directing 2-4 and left it all to David to screw up. Darren left in order to direct his upcoming film Repo! 'Saw V' attempts to bring the series in a new direction, where the film takes on more of a mystery direction then a horror flair, and this new direction ruins it all the way. Written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the script isnt any better, and I leave the blame to the two main writers for the films flaws. While 'Saw V' does have some pretty disgusting scenes in which the gore hounds like me would crave, and sometimes it gets pretty creative and inventive, it makes me mad just to see how they ruined the series.
When Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) learns that his secret connection to Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) will be exposed, the forensics detective embarks on a hunt to eradicate everything that links him to the serial killer in the fifth installment of the grisly horror series. Jigsaw's legacy of torturous traps lives on and director David Hackl remains at the helm in this gruesome continuation of the franchise.
Tobin Bell is sorrowly missed from the series, in which is the reason we get extreme amounts of flashbacks in which contain Jigsaw and they always try and find a way to get him back on the screen. He doesnt have a large part here what so ever, but his return is mild and I kind of enjoyed it. He is in a few flashbacks and such but never having to much to say. Costas Mandylor plays as Detective Hoffman, who has taken over the spot of Jigsaw. It is explained how he becomes the new Jigsaw copycat throughout the film, but his performance is so emotionless and stone cold I cant really say I enjoyed his presence to much. The only scene I saw real emotion from him was the flashback of his dead sister, and there wasnt much emotion there either.
Scott Patterson plays as Detective Strohm, who gets trapped in one of Jigsaw's elaborate plan, and escapes. He screwed up the plan in which Hoffman had set up, this is where it becomes more of a chase movie then anything. There is a reason Scott had to change his voice, I dont want to ruin it but it was pretty smart. I kind of saw how good of an actor he was but I still dont think he's anywhere near perfection, the script just didnt give him anything to work with to much. Another small appearence we have here is Meagan Good as Luba, one of the 5 people trapped in a larger game. These 5 people are locked up and must work together to get through 5 different games. This seems like a completely different storyline all together and I didnt quite understand the reasoning for it.
The Saw series has always been known for the games and the traps, not to mention the insane level of creativity and how gory these scenes can become. 'Saw V' continues this level of gore but doesnt in a different approach. By spreading out the deaths through the film and keeping a large time gap between them, they seem to shock us more. The only thing which seemed to get me though is that the traps are slow and really must hurt. We even get an opening scene which contains the famous pendulum scenario we all know, it sets up the rest of the movie finely. I felt as if the traps did get boring though, and they seem to run out of ideas very quickly.
David Hackl did a good job in keeping the mood and cinematography looking like the rest of the films, but in Saw tradition, he confused me with the flashbacks. They popped up in the wrong places at the wrong times and overlapped a lot of what was currently going on, so we couldnt tell if it was a flashback or a current scene in the present time. He also worked a lot with the fast forward and slow mo elements a little bit, and kind of messed that up but I dont want to ditch him that bad, I mean its his first film, come on.
'Saw V' is a major dissapointment all around. Its boring and repetitive, not to mention the fact that it could destroy the next two movies if David stays with it. Wow, I am sad now.
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