Where to begin? I guess I should explain my thought on this “franchise” first. I am someone who loved the very first film. I then heard that a sequel was on the way and it made me curious as to why. To me the movie was one that was best left alone. At the same time, I’m not someone who doesn’t appreciate a good sequel. Key word there being “good”. Since the first film I’ve now half heartedly forced myself to see the rest of them. That is the case with this one as well. Throw in the fact I’m still one of those people who are a bit disappointed with some of Lions Gate’s recent actions and you can sort of tell I wasn’t in a good mood before seeing this one. I wasn’t expecting much going in and I got even less when I came out.

The movie begins with a man in a room on a table. He is obviously being held against his will and it would seem stuck in one those infamous traps that “Jigsaw” has become known for. I’m not going to go into the detail of the trap, but it was one I actually liked. The man plays the game. We are then shown that there is someone peeping through a hole in the wall once the game is over. Then we flash to the ending of the last movie. FBI agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) is looking over the scene of Jigsaw’s demise when he notices a strange light coming through one of the walls. He investigates to find it is a secret door that leads to a hallway inside the house. There is a tape recorder dangling in front of him. He plays it with a message from Jigsaw warning him not to go any further. Obviously he doesn’t listen and is then abducted to later be found in his own “game”. Again, no details on the trap, but he wins his game. We are then shown the outside scene of the house with police and ambulances everywhere. Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) is carrying out the little girl from the third film and reports how nobody made it. At that point, agent Strahm is being wheeled into the back of an ambulance behind them and we see a puzzled look come across Hoffman’s face. Agent Strahm, recovering from his injury, is curious about just what happened in the house. He doesn’t think that it is all as “open shut” as everyone else does and is determined to find out what actually happened. Thanks to that we get to sit through it and follow his path as he finds his answer.

     The acting was less than stellar, but it is another case of blaming the material rather than the actors. It was good to see Tobin Bell in some fashion and I didn’t think I would, but I did notice Shawnee Smith’s absence. Patterson and Mandylor did their jobs as cookie cutter as possible and that was that. Nothing worth wasting too much more of our time writing about.

     The effects were decent, but far from ground breaking. Saw is a movie that is known for its gore and traps. It usually does give us at least that. There is still some to be found here. I mean a couple of wounds are nicely done, but nothing overly creative or inventive. The same can be said about the traps. I don’t know if there was a concerted effort to make sure they weren’t up to Jigsaw standards, but they seemed very flat to me.

     I can’t help but wonder if the next installment, if there is one, will be straight to DVD fare. This movie lacked the initiative of the first film and didn’t even come through on the one thing you could look forward to in the franchise. There did seem to be a focused attempt at making the traps the forefront, but they were bad. Even the story that surrounded the traps and attempted to progress the movie had no life. I really wish there was something good to say about this movie since I am a fan of the first movie, but nothing can be found here. I feel like I sat down in the theater, Jigsaw whispered to me, “Let’s play a game.”, I sat through the movie which was my trap and am still trying to figure out if making it through the whole film makes me a winner, because I sure don’t feel like one after seeing that.