This movie makes it clear from the title that it's going off in a different direction. This time it's "from the book of Saw," leading to the conclusion that this movie is going to be inspired by the Jigsaw murders without necessarily continuing the series' complicated backstory with all the side characters who ran rampant through the first seven movies. Chris Rock stars in this movie, and I don't think I've ever seen him in a serious role, so I was excited to see him act in this one. The movie was pretty polarizing for the critics and fans with this new direction the movie takes, and the movie only grossed $40.6 million dollars, whereas Jigsaw grossed $104.2 million, so that was far more popular than this movie. Why the shift in popularity?
The lead character of this movie is a detective named Ezekiel Banks, who has to live in the shadow of his father, who was a famous detective on the force. He steps out of line in the beginning of this movie and ends up being assigned a rookie partner to help cool him down a little bit. Right off the bat, the two detectives stumble across a grisly murder that is reminiscent of the Jigsaw killings, and everyone is shaken up that the murders might start all over again. Soon Zeke finds himself at the center of the killer's demented game, trying to figure out who the killer is and why he's targeting people this time. Is Jigsaw somehow back from the dead? is this new killer a copycat? Will Zeke and his partner be able to figure out what's going on before the killer strikes again?
This might seem like a small thing, but in this sequel they changed Jigsaw's creepy voice (the one we've been listening to for eight movies now) to a different voice that sounds like Kermit the frog, and that was really distracting to me. Every time the victims play one of Jigsaw's infamous tapes, you're supposed to be shaking with fear, not laughter. Plus this movie is partly the story of how Zeke came to be hated by his coworkers for snitching on another cop, so it's almost more of a gritty police drama that has a few gruesome murders thrown in to try and connect it to the Saw movies. For most of its running time, this is how the film plays out, so I can see why this movie wasn't as successful as previous sequels (people wanted to see a Saw movie, not "Bad Lieutenant 2"). Also this movie would have us believe Jigsawwas able to sneak into the basementof the precinct and set up one of his elaborate traps with no one noticing, which is just silly.
Still, there's a lot to like about this movie. Zeke is a likeable enough character, and I felt bad for him that so many of his fellow cops hated him for trying to do the right thing. His dad is a larger than life kinda guy, played by Samuel L. Jackson, and I can imagine it wasn't fun trying to grow up in his shadow. I love Samuel L. Jackson and he's great in this role. What gore there is manages to be pretty effective. This movie is like the first three in that the gore is always tied to the plot of the movie, its never gratuitous. Maybe the lack of spectacle is part of what kept viewers from liking this movie? Or maybe it's the big reveal at the end where we finally find out who's behind these murders, which fits with the storyline of this movie but is a big departure from the other films. This killer seems to be targeting cops whereas Jigsaw was targeting people who weren't enjoying their lives and needed to be taught a lesson. This movie obviously thinks that it's great, it's got this smug feeling to it that I really don't like. but it could have been its own kinda cool little psycho killer story without trying to make money by latching itself onto the Saw franchise (which as we have seen didn't work for it anyway). As a cop drama with some good performances and cool gore, it's not a bad movie. As a part of the Saw saga, it leaves a lot to be desired.
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