Saw

Okay, first things first. Saw is supposed to be a horror movie, but that's the villain in that picture above. That's not scary. He just looks like the most creative guy at the Eyes Wide Shut orgy. "Somebody help! Cirque du Soleil is trying to kill me!"

Note to Saw director James Wan: old-timey tricycles are not scary. Ever. I know a lot of the coolest serial killer props are taken, like chainsaws and hockey masks and knife gloves and little metal balls with spikes coming out, but you're gonna have to do a bit better than a guy in a mask and a top hat.

Alright, with that dispensed with, here's some more reasons not to pick up Saw once it comes out on DVD this Tuesday.

1) Despite a great opening, Saw has nothing new to offer the serial killer genre

Saw stars off like gangbusters. The script has a truly tremendous first 10 pages, which according to most screenwriting professors, is all you really need anyway. We open with two guys (screenwriter Leigh Whannell and Former Dread Pirate Roberts Cary Elwes) chained to pipes on opposite ends of a fetid, dingy restroom, with only a bleeding, dessicated corpse lying between them.

Sounds good so far, right? You almost want to rent it already, right?

All the material at the beginning in this bathroom is terrific. The two men bicker, share ideas, and solve diabolical little puzzles, in an attempt to figure out why they've been tied up, how they can get free, and who could possibly have done this to them.

But Whannell's script just runs out of steam way too quickly. Before long, he's finding dumb excuses to leave the bathroom, entering flashbacks within flashbacks in a desperate attempt to provide Saw with needless backstory. We find out that the Elwes character was a suspect in a series of grisly murders, that the cop investigating these murders (Danny Glover in full-on Murtaugh mode) became obsessed with bringing him down, we find out about the unfortunate case of a girl whose jaw was wired to a bear trap (providing the movie with a freaky NIN video-style image for the poster). Unfortunately, we don't really care about any of this crap. We just want to see how the two guys get the hell out of that bathroom.

2) The villain in Saw is entirely weak

Everybody knows that the key to a cool horror/serial killer movie is a cool serial killer. Duh. It's right there in the name of the genre.

Think of the classic films of this type. Silence of the Lambs. Seven. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Boston Stranger. What do they have in common? Villains who capture our attention. Murderers whose methodology or intent pique our interest, appeal to some dark fascination in our own imaginations. Hannibal Lecter, though overexposed now from various silly sequels, wasn't just some pawn for a screenwriter to manipulate. He was an animal with real desires. Anthony Hopkins (oh, excuse me...Sir Anthony) infused him with genuine humanity, a sense of humor and a sharp intellect. 'Cause that makes his evil more palpable, his unfortunate deeds even more unwholesome.

Saw denies us this pleasure. It's serial killer, known as the Jigsaw Killer because he devises clever puzzles in order to ensare his victims, stays offscreen for just about the entire film. And when he's on screen, he's in a weird mask on a tricycle wearing a top hat. Or in the background on a fuzzy video.

And what's more, we get no sense for what drives him, for why he wants to kill all these people. Hannibal Lecter wanted to prove he was better than everyone else, that he was capable enough to kill and remain undetected. Plus, he was hungry. And John Doe from Seven kills to educate humanity, to remind people of the wrathful vengeance of an angry God. Hell, even Freddy Kreuger's got some motivation. Remember? The parents of Elm Street burned him alive for molesting their children, so now he hunts their children in dreams.

Saw has the occasional off-handed comment about how the killer wants to remind people to live life to the fullest, or some shit like that, but it's never elaborated upon. And when his/her identity is finally revealed, it's not so much a surprise as a random case of fill-in-the-supporting-cast-member. There's no sense of who this person is, why they committed these crimes, or why we should care.

3) The acting sucks

Though I was not a fan of this script, finding it thin and gimmicky, I don't doubt Leigh Whannell may be capable of producing something worthwhile in the future. He's adept with the narrative structure - the film is filled with flashbacks and yet I was never confused about what was going on or when it was happening. But he's no actor. He's stiff, forced and never once believable. And Cary Elwes has never been this bad in any film I've seen with him. And I've seen The Crush, co-starring Miss Alicia Silverstone. His accent stinks, he never seems clever or devious enough to figure out the complex puzzles set up by Jigsaw, and his emotional breakdown near the film's conclusion is strained and unbelievable to the point of complete camp.

Glover as well doesn't exactly perform to his usual caliber. The main emotive tool in his Saw arsenal is the ability to sweat, which he does profusely for just about the entire film's running time. Other than that, it's an entirely forgettable turn.

4) The best set pieces are rip-offs

A lot of the Jigsaw Killer's technique cops Seven directly. Like in Seven, Jigsaw prefers not to simply murder people, but to do so in a mischevious, Rube Goldberg-inspired way that gives cops something to talk about when they arrive at the crime scene.

One grisly sequence in particular, in which a man must crawl through a nest of barbed wire in order to escape from a dungeon, ripping his body to shreds in the process, reminded me specifically of the scene in Seven in which the man must eat himself to death. The difference is, Seven had the magnificent talent of director David Fincher to fall back on, who gave that film a distinctive style and brooding countenance that has since inspired a generation of up-and-coming filmmakers. Wan contents himself to riff on this style, adding in the occasional sped-up, jerky montage.

So, there you go. Don't see Saw. Or, if you do, don't say I didn't warn you.