I’m going to preface this review by saying that the first Saw movie was not bad, but the sequels tended to get progressively worse. I’m not really into torture porn horror, because it seems to miss the point of why horror is an interesting genre. Just mutilating people alone isn’t worthy of my time. What I’m looking for are things like interesting characters, societal subtext, good triumphing over evil, and uniqueness that goes beyond basic storytelling.

This is not a true Saw sequel, but rather a spin-off. It stars Chris Rock as a police detective trying to solve a Jigsaw copycat killer with some sort of vendetta against police officers. Samuel L. Jackson plays the supporting role of Rock’s retired police chief dad in a wasted use of Jackson’s talent.

Chris Rock was definitely the best part of the film and a welcome casting against type. You could tell where the dialogue was poorly written and where he did some improvised bits. I kind of wish they would have let him clean up the rest of the dialogue, because some of it was cringeworthy.

The focus on solving the mystery was more interesting to me than the Saw formula, which was thankfully sidelined. Many of the plot elements, including the eventual reveal of the killer, were just too predictable.

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