The film’s highlight is Amanda, a tempest of fully embodied desperation and psychosis.
The series bottles the original’s pulpy spirit and atmosphere for an irresistibly macabre package.
Linas Phillips’s contrived sense of follow-through betrays the truthfulness of his initial characterizations.
A genre mishmash cobbled together from the refuse of disparate visual and narrative modes.
The film’s dialogue is knowing and the action sequences are elaborate, but only in ways that advance the shady story toward its hokey denouement.
Saw 3D may just be the Saw-iest Saw film of them all.
Spoilers ahead, this is going to get ugly.
The Saw franchise goes, ugh, topical with this sixth installment.
Deadly traps may remain the bread and butter of the Saw series, but the real trick has become keeping these fetid sequels moderately fresh.
It’s hardly surprising that the story is merely an excessively convoluted rehash of its predecessors.
In general, Saw III simply peddles gruesomeness of a disgusting rather than frightening order.
The film is unable to deliver the single novel concept or unexpected surprise that might justify its existence.
The film doesn’t announce first-time director James Wan as a new auteur, but as a media-saturated copycat.