Saw 5

After so many sequels, there really ought to be an expectation that Saw 5 would really be losing steam and whatever reason there was for the series seems to disappearing into the ether, The same basic concept as the original is now followed once again. Jigsaw is finally dead and gone so we know he's not pulling the strings anymore and the way we know this is that the very first trap is not a winnable one.

The man in the chair at the beginning of the movie is required to choose weather to be sliced and diced by a moving blade or have his hands crushed. He decides to lose his hands, but the blade just keeps going. Very un-Jigsaw like. If nothing else, Jigsaw always gave his marks a sporting chance, if only they would be intelligent enough to work out the solution, but the person behind the traps here seems to not care for that particular bit of Jigsaw's theology.

There is once again someone who has a deep dark secret to hide, just like in the original movie, although unlike in the original movie, we know who it is and it is only the characters of the movie that are still clueless. It gives you a kind of feeling of watching as rats run in a maze. You know where the cheese is, but you're watching to see if they are intelligent enough to figure it out for themselves.

The traps are still there and are particularly gruesome and disgusting, even more so than in the older movies (don't forget that Jigsaw is gone so we are not constrained by whatever his sense of morality might have been regarding giving his players - er, victims a fair chance).

This is David Hackl's directional debut. He's been with the series since the second movie, and he worked with the screen writers of Saw 5 to try to find some way of tying things back into the previous movies so that it doesn't sound totally ridiculous and disconnected, though frankly it's a stretch to see this as anything but milking of the series.

Still and all, in order to follow the action in this newest installment, you need to have seen more of the original four movies because they do have some more "origin" stuff where they try to show you a little more about the characters and why they do what they do, though thankfully the flashbacks are kept to a bare minimum in this installment.

Over-all, if you've stuck with the series this long, you're likely to continue to be happy. There is plenty of blood and gore and the booze and babes type crowd that they've been aiming for lately should be pretty happy with the movie. Since the 6th installment is set to arrive soon, I suggest you pick up the DVD of Saw 5 and take a gander at it if you haven't done so already and want to keep up with the series.

Find saw 5 on http://www.saw-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0.com;. Discover the latest update on this topic.