Jigsaw

Seven years is a long time to wait for the same old tricks.

Jigsaw resurrects a franchise that should have stayed buried. Despite a title that promises a return to basics, we get a greatest-hits compilation with none of the original’s nasty ingenuity.

The setup is familiar. Bodies pile up bearing the signature of John Kramer, who’s been dead for a decade. Cops scratch their heads. Meanwhile, strangers wake up in a barn—yes, a barn—where they’re forced to play Jigsaw’s “game.” The detective work unfolds in warmly lit rural settings, a jarring departure from the franchise’s signature grimy aesthetic. The Spierig Brothers have swapped out the urban decay for rolling hills and amber sunsets.

But a fresh coat of paint can’t hide rotting wood.

The original Saw worked because we cared whether its characters lived or died. Here, the victims are so abrasive and one-dimensional that we’re rooting for the traps. When a purse-snatcher refuses to choose between three needles—one deadly, one harmless, one that saves everyone—while her fellow captives dangle from nooses, another victim just stabs her with all three. Problem solved. Then the others turn on him: “How could you kill her?” Are you kidding me? He just saved your lives.

This scene encapsulates everything wrong with Jigsaw. The characters behave like idiots. The moral quandaries that once gave the series unexpected depth have vanished. The traps feel rigged, not inevitable—plot devices rather than death machines. Jigsaw leaves tape recordings that reference events that just happened in the previous room, even though he’s watching everything on camera and the rooms are wired for sound. Why bother?

Then there’s the police work, which defies belief. Chain of custody violations exist solely to enable the obligatory twist ending. Speaking of which, Tobin Bell returns as Jigsaw (franchise fans will guess how), but his scenes are riddled with logic holes. He confronts a middle-aged victim about something that happened in high school. How would he know? And why reveal his identity when the victim might escape?

The finale delivers one genuinely spectacular kill—a grotesque “blooming head flower” of practical and visual effects that ranks among the franchise’s most stomach-churning moments.

It deserved a better movie.

After seven years, this was the best they could do? The Saw films always played like violent soap operas, complete with convoluted continuity after killing off their villain in part three. But that rapid—fire yearly schedule created a strange momentum. This comeback has nothing but time on its hands and wastes all of it.