Jigsaw (2017)
Directed by Michael Spierig
Law enforcement finds itself chasing the ghost of a man dead for over a decade, embroiled in a diabolical new game that's only just begun.
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What critics compared Jigsaw to
We saw his very dead body sliced open for autopsy in Saw IV, and it’s to Jigsaw’s credit that audiences still semi-expect to see the sanctimonious old coot resurrected.
From Saw (2004) to Saw 3D (2010), the ingenious, gruesome franchise owned the week-of-Halloween release date.
(Though brutal, none of the new tests enter the Saw Hall of Fame for creativity.)
There’s an understandable misapprehension that the Saw films are all about the twisted torture game devices, but the real strength of the franchise – all the way back to James Wan’s small-scale original Saw (2004) – has been its commitment to equally twisted mystery plotting.
The Spierig Brothers, the Australian siblings whose credits include Daybreakers and Predestination, directed this edition which takes place 10 years after Jigsaw's death.
The directing Spierig Brothers—who, like Wan, hail from Australia, and previously helmed the more interesting Daybreakers and Predestination—keep Jigsaw moving briskly enough and don’t wallow in mean-spiritedness in the manner of some previous entries.
Screenwriters Pete Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg and directors Michael and Peter Spierig are new to the series, but qualified to tackle the razorwire labyrinth by their work writing the inventive slasher remake Sorority Row and directing the time paradox drama Predestination .
But now, we stand at a morbidly fascinating threshold where, for instance, the latest installment in the “Saw” series, “Jigsaw,” which arrives courtesy of directors Michael and Peter Spierig (the German siblings behind “Daybreakers” and “Predestination,” a pair of bleak sci-fi actioners with Ethan Hawke), seems like a necessary reaction to the everyday madness of our newsfeeds.
But new co-directors Michael and Peter Spierig offered some semblance of hope through their previous above-average genre efforts, Daybreakers and Predestination .
The best thing one can say about this resurrection is that, as directed by the Spierig Brothers (Predestination, Daybreakers), it’s arguably the best-looking Saw film since the original, employing its predecessor’s trademark rotting-green-and-black color palette to relatively stylish effect.