Saw IV

So this movie starts with the autopsy of Jigsaw (oops, spoilers), during which they take out the killers brain, missing a glorious opportunity to either a) place it in a robot body, or b) eat it to gain Jigsaw's powers a la Jason Goes to Hell. Missed opportunities is what this franchise is all about! Again, like the last movie, we get a ton of irritating flashbacks, including the, gasp, "twist" that the whole movie is a flashback and takes place during Saw III! Why, you may ask? Who cares! No really creative deathtraps here and also we learn that Jigsaw is Jigsaw because his unborn baby got killed accidentally by a junkie. Hasn't anybody in movieland heard of therapy???

RATING: 42%

Saw III

Hey, here's a good jumping on point to the series in case you missed Saws I and II, since about 45% of this movie is composed of flashbacks explaining things we never wanted explained from the first two movies! For instance (SPOILERS), did you ever wonder which mirror Jigsaw used to put the fake blood on him or why the two victims didn't see his body breathe the whole movie long for Saw I? No? Too bad! The plot of this movie is Jigsaw is dying but luckily his co-Jigsaw kidnapped a surgeon to do brain surgery and meanwhile a sad dad has to compete in a series of evil events to get over his son who was killed less than one year ago, the big crybaby (?). You got a freezer situation, a drowning via rotten pig guts situation, and a neck bomb situation a la Total Recall. I can already tell this series is just going to get more and more incomprehensible as we go on, but, hey, clarity is for suckers.

RATING: 45%

(I shouldn't have been rating the Resident Evil movies so high the whole time)

Saw II

So obviously you gotta amp up the gore and crazy in any sequel, so here we've got a whole group of (really irritating) people with no connection (OR IS THERE?) who must escape a whole house of traps and whathaveyou. There's a needle pit, a furnace hole, and a neurotoxic gas that will make all the victims bleed like crazy! I wonder where this Jigsaw Killer gets his money for all this stuff, anyway? These movies could be better if they didn't presume their audience was full of idiots - whenever the characters figure out a clue they have to show a flashback where the clue was read aloud as though we can't rermember back thirty minutes our own damn selves.

RATING: 61%