Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021) - Bye Bye!

 

★☆☆☆☆

Oh my, I just can’t believe it. This is the ninth installment of the ‘Saw’ series already. How many years has it been since the first appeared to sweep us off our feet? Well, I don’t remember when I started to feel fed up and decided to call it quits, maybe right after ‘Saw V’. All I remember is ‘Saw’ and ‘Saw II’ that really were something out of the ordinary back there. They’re still like the best of that can’t be surpassed. That, serving like a curse unfortunately, makes all those sequels they promised to make every once a year afterwards more or less a joke, including this latest one!

Critically speaking, ‘Spiral: From the Book of Saw’ feels like an outsider, though there’re still bloody sickening traps that make you want to turn away, and the same old familiar ‘I wanna play a game’ ritual, plus of course plot twists. The whole tone of it nonetheless, feels so not ‘Saw’ which is supposed to be serious, nerve-wracking and even a bit depressing. Maybe it’s something to do with the casting. Y’know when you see Chris Rock, you feel like instantly you’re watching a comedy rather than a crime thriller, don’t you? Does he look like a tough cop right there? Not at all. More like a clown indeed. Even when he gets pissed off swearing and shouting, I feel like laughing! And the rest of the cast are more like reciting their own lines from the script than acting actually! As for whodunit after all, since it’s not difficult for me to figure, the so called final surprise is by no means a surprise or a satisfaction!

They should’ve put an end to the series long time ago. They should’ve let the dead be dead. A trilogy would be good enough to wrap it up as a matter of fact but instead, they kept resurrecting it over and again till it inevitably started to rot and stink. And you know what, ‘Saw X’ is coming soon next year. What can I say then? I guess I can only try to live with the fact that we’re all like ignorant beings that have tendency to self-abuse and torment with this game of life we all have to be playing!