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Saw X Review
Image Credit: Alexandro Bolaños Escamilla/Lionsgate
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Cast:
* Tobin Bell as John Kramer/Jigsaw
* Shawnee Smith as Amanda Young
* Synnøve Macody Lund as Cecilia Pederson
* Steven Brand as Parker Sears
* Michael Beach as Henry Kessler
* Renata Vaca as Gabriela
* Paulette Hernandez as Valentina
* Octavio Hinojosa as Mateo
* Joshua Okamoto as Diego
Story: Set between the events of SAW I and II, a sick and desperate John travels to Mexico for a risky and experimental medical procedure in hopes of a miracle cure for his cancer – only to discover the entire operation is a scam to defraud the most vulnerable. Armed with a newfound purpose, John returns to his work, turning the tables on the con artists in his signature visceral way through a series of ingenious and terrifying traps.
Like any good horror franchise, the Saw series probably should have died a long time ago. In fact, it was meant to at least twice, but somehow they keep going. Somehow this series survived killing off its own villain in the third film and studio meddling that brought the main story to an unsatisfying conclusion. Saw 3D left fans with a rotten taste in their mouths, something that wasn’t helped much by Jigsaw or the mostly-unrelated Spiral. Obviously, they knew they had to put Tobin Bell front and center for the tenth film, so we get a prequel.
Kramer seeks to find a cure for his cancer, something that was alluded to in Saw VI. He thinks he finds it but of course, these people aren’t out to help anyone. John ends up getting conned and as the trailer suggests, “of all the men to cheat, you picked John Kramer?” That’d be like holding an orgy at Camp Crystal Lake. It’s tempting fate a little too much. So John uses his resources to seek a reawakening (not retribution, he claims) for his latest “subjects.”
The film is different in a lot of ways to nearly everything that came before it. It’s first-and-foremost a revenge movie disguised as a Saw prequel. It has the familiar trappings (the traps, Billy, Amanda), but this is less of a typical entry than any of them. For one thing, the story’s told in a linear fashion, something that’s never happened in this series before. There are brief occasional flashbacks, but they’re only to events that happened within this film’s timeframe. It’s a self-contained story told from beginning to end, ignoring the jumping timelines style that originated in the first film.
That’s honestly a good thing. While it’s nice to have John and Amanda back and the few Easter Eggs are fun, the mythology was getting too convoluted. Part of that was part of the soap opera feel for a lot of fans. Every twist and flashback made the series feel episodic. But that story has been told in the way it has been told and doesn’t have to apply to future stories. We don’t need there to be yet another secret apprentice as with Jigsaw or some wonky time-shifting narrative (also Jigsaw). A basic story is only to this film’s benefit and ends up making it one of, if not the best sequel.
At first, you might not think that having an 81-year-old Bell play a past version of himself works. But John Kramer is dying at this point in his life, so it ends up working out. And Bell honestly doesn’t look his age anyway. Even Shawnee Smith has aged well enough that you can buy that this is a prequel. One might assume that takes away the suspense, as we know what happens to them both down the line. But this introduces plenty of new characters whose fates are undetermined to make up for that. And not all of them are guilty. Even in the world of a prequel, Saw X is able to maintain its standard twists and turns to keep you guessing how things will play out.
The best part of the entire film is Tobin Bell. Prior to this, it could be argued that Saw II was the best of the sequels. A lot of that had to do with keeping things simple and keeping Tobin Bell front and center. His back-and-forth with Donnie Wahlberg in that was just as entertaining as the traps. He has even more screentime here and the movie takes advantage of that. In this entry, we spend a lot of time with John Kramer and get to humanize him a little bit. He became a mythical figure in this franchise and now we get to spend time with John the man as he comes to grips with his own mortality.
The film does a decent job of making him sympathetic. If you came into this movie never watching a Saw film before, you might even see him as heroic. Of course longtime fans are already familiar with with his moral hypocrisy. Jigsaw has, in fact, killed a lot of people…and few of them deserved it. In this case, there is still a grey area but at least one of the people involved 100% deserves to be taught a lesson by Jigsaw. Amanda gets a little more to do too, with a lot that teases her future in the overall narrative. You learn a little more about why Amanda was never going to work out as Jigsaw’s apprentice, something John himself even seems to realize.
Of course, if you’re watching Saw X, you are probably anticipating the traps. Traps in this series had gone downhill similar to the overall quality of the films. The majority of traps in the past three films were either forgettable or too convoluted to take seriously. The back to basics approach applies here too. The traps are simple and to the point, and very nasty. You’ve probably heard of the eye vaccuum trap (featured on the poster), but John has even more disgusting ideas than that.
If there is one flaw with the film, it’s the ending. It seems the producers couldn’t help themselves, because Saw X does not has a conclusive ending as one would like. The fate of a couple of characters are left ambiguous in what is obviously an attempt to draw people in for the inevitable Saw XI. In a way, I get it. They should probably strike while the iron is hot and people are excited for Saw again. But it hurts this specific story to expect resolution in some cases and not get it. I would be shocked if another movie isn’t announced by the end of the month.
Franchise-minded thinking continues to hurt movies like this, but at least the ride getting here kept it from hurting. In the case of Saw X, it was perhaps the franchise’s best story. The framing and acting set it apart from everything that came before, without abandoning what makes these films work to begin with. If it’s not the best Saw in the series, it’s at least top three.
