Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Lionsgate hasn’t been showing this one to critics, and they’ve already declared this “SAW weekend.” I’m sure they’re right in terms of the film opening big.

I would imagine that the person who could best tell us whether it’s actually worth the money is the sort of fan who would go to a midnight screening of the movie. They’re the ones who are really excited to see it, and they’re bound to have some opinion on it, right?

Check out what this guy just had to say:

Hey Harry…

Just got out of the midnight screening of SAW IV. Not a great film, but a respectable entry in the franchise nonetheless.

A lot of your opinion of this film is obviously going to hang on your opinion of the first 3 but if you liked what you saw in those films, there's enough material in the fourth installment to keep you satisfied. If you break all the films down and look at the common elements, the two biggest things that jump out at me are theme and chronology. It seems like both of those play major parts in all the films. You can look at the first film as the main setup, the intro, while the second film focused more on connections and common ground. The third is a pretty sweet take on revenge and it's consequences, while the fourth's main artery is the concept of trying to help and save others and how that can sometimes come at your own expense.

There were some pacing issues, a few points where it felt a bit slow but there's no dragging second act or anything and all things considered, the narrative jumps between the storylines fairly well. A good amount of time is spent on backstory, which really opens up the Jigsaw character and explores his motivations and early forays into the traps that became his trademark. I really got into these clips and Tobin Bell put in another solid performance that anchored the film.

I would have liked to see more emphasis on Jigsaw's relationship with Amanda. That's one thing that SAW III touched on, but I wanted to know more about what happened there. There's still a good amount of detail that could get flushed out and make that a more interesting, dynamic relationship. Thankfully, it toned down the amount of fast-paced quick cuts that infiltrated several key scenes in SAW III. There are still a few but I didn't find them nearly as distracting this time around.

The one really negative part of the film for me was FBI Agent Strahm who is a clichéd cookie-cutter asshole cop, one-dimensional and frankly pretty annoying. This guy got on my nerves from scene one and it was down-hill from there. Not like we need a layered, nuanced Oscar worthy supporting role from this guy or anything, but he just didn't ring true to me. He launches into some verbal tirades that seem pretty unfounded and therefore unrealistic.

There were some decent traps this time around, though the first one is easily my favorite…that trap that makes you go "Oh……OH…shit!" Definitely gets things started on the right foot. Pretty good SAW film, there's a lot to like here for fans of the series. It'll be interesting to see if they give it another go and where they might try to take things from here.

Billy Sunday