The third movie doesn't go over the edge, but it does start to feel like John is setting his subjects up to fail, and the game shouldn't be rigged quite so hard if he really wants people to walk the path of redemption.

| Oct 27, 2017

Staying mostly faithful to the successful blueprint of its two earlier installments, Saw III is an adequate sequel that works well enough on its own terms.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2008

One of the most sadistic, brutal, grisly films of the current splatter-porn genre.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

| Original Score: 3/6 | Feb 3, 2007

It requires a stretch of the imagination too far, but there's still plenty of gore and tricksy murders here.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 29, 2006

No one will ever be able to accuse series creators and scribes Leigh Wannell and James Wan of being stingy with the red stuff.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 11, 2006

God or Jack Valenti only knows how this work of pure entertainment got an R rating 'for strong grisly violence and gore, sequences of terror and torture, nudity and language.'

Full Review | Nov 7, 2006

Because of its efforts to make sense of the previous entries and even attempt an earnest parable about forgiveness, Saw III may be the best of the trilogy; hopefully, it'll encourage its makers to wrap the franchise on a relatively high note.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Nov 3, 2006

Even splatter-film buffs should be offended by this piece of nonsense: Not because it's so gross, but because it's so dumb.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Nov 2, 2006

The second Saw sequel develops the mythology of sadistic puppet-master Jigsaw in ambitious, gruesome but ultimately self-defeating ways.

| Nov 2, 2006

Admit it: It's not every horror film that can make you feel preached at and slimed at the same time.

| Original Score: C | Nov 1, 2006

The fact that it contrives to give its torture master the moral high ground (apparently he only tortures his victims for their own good) is possibly more perverse than any of its violence.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 31, 2006

Tedium eventually sets in again, the movie's murky visual schema and overly aggressive editing style marring any attempts at subtlety. Worse yet, the Jigsaw Killer remains a smug, unscary bore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 30, 2006

More gore is really all III has to offer.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 30, 2006

Just like its increasingly wan antihero, this blood-soaked series is on its last legs.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 30, 2006

Saw III is nasty, repulsive, disgusting -- and loaded with enough viscera to probably sell at least $30 million worth of tickets this weekend.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2006

The question for moviegoers: Would you rather get your dose of existenz-philosophie from Dostoyevsky or a slasher flick?

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 30, 2006

Ee'll just entertain you by mentioning such extraneous details as a human skull being opened and probed, a naked woman being frozen to death, a man drowning in the ground-up carcasses of dead pigs ...

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 30, 2006

As the creators of The X-Files learned and the people behind Lost are going to find out soon, you can only jerk around an audience... for so long before they start screaming in frustration and move on to something else.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Oct 30, 2006

A bigger problem lies with Leigh Whannell's script, which utilizes so many flashbacks and explanatory inserts that the tension, a defining feature of the first Saw, is lost.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2006