A terrible ending to a legendary saga. Nearly everything from the previous six movies, let alone _Saw VI_, is dropped to make this as much as a self-contained movie as possible. Dr. Gordon is introduced in the opening scene, we see Jill put Hoffman in the Reverse Bear Trap from the end of _Saw VI_, and there is a group of survivors from Jigsaw's previous traps that are nothing but cameos. Every other character in this film is new and exists to be killed off sometime later. No character development, no emotional attachments for anyone, nothing for the viewer to feel. The characters have as much build up as a character from any _A Nightmare on Elm Street_, _Friday the 13th_, or _Halloween_ film has. What the producers had made was as close to a generic slasher as a Saw film can be. In short, this film was made for the casual audience who came to see a 3D horror movie, not the fans who followed the series since the beginning. If there's still any doubt about this claim, producer Mark Burg even said in an interview with Reuters that "even new viewers will be able to follow and get caught up to speed."

So what exactly makes this film so bad besides essentially making it a standalone? As mentioned above, the characters are cardboard cutouts of previous characters. The "game" here is modeled after Jeff's game from _Saw III_, but there is no emotional attachment that can be seen on the screen. Whereas Jeff had to burn his son's possessions to get a key in Judge Halden's trap, everyone in this game is just a person Bobby works with. He has no real connection to them, and it can be seen on screen that these people don't affect him the way judge who gave a light sentence to a murderer, a drunk driver who killed a child, or a woman who saw it all and did nothing do to the man whose life was ruined by them. Jeff had rage and hatred in his heart. Bobby has nothing. To add to this, the traps are some of the worst in the series. One of them resembles a machine at my gym, complete with weights. All the creators did for this was add a woman who will be killed by three attached spears if Bobby fails to hold the weights up for long enough. Another trap would kill someone in real life if attempted to even try and save the victim. A trap near the end was an idea for _Saw IV_ that was rejected.

To add to how poor this game is made, it barely serves any point to the plot. It _does_ have a little bit of a point, but it could have been rewritten to have much more meaning than it does. As it is, it's 95% an excuse to do two things: (1) have people in traps and die and (2) help the film reach its 90 minute runtime. The characters are hollow and flat, the traps are poorly designed and even illogical, and the game serves no major purpose for the film's main plot of Hoffman chasing after Jill for trying to kill him at the end of the previous film. Adding further insult, the characters in the game haven't done anything actually evil. None of them killed anyone, none of them ruined anyone's life, none of them tried ending their own lives. Their crime is promoting Bobby Dagen as a Jigsaw survivor when he, in fact, is not. Jigsaw goes after people who have done something morally evil. One of the characters in the game is Bobby's wife who is not even _aware_ his story of being a survivor is a lie. That doesn't follow Jigsaw's philosophy, and no point for this is ever made. It is merely bad writing.

To end it all, the film concludes with a "twist" that was literally predicted by a fan on the now-defunct House of Jigsaw web forum back in 2005 with the release of _Saw II_. This movie has no director's cut as the extreme script changes and producer interference made everyone involved from director Kevin Greutert to writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan want to finish this project and get away from it as soon as possible. This movie is simply a standalone movie for casual moviegoers and is an insult to the fanbase who has spent money over the past years on merchandise, movie tickets, DVDs/BDs, music, and more. However, I will end this review on a positive note as there are a few good notes about this film.

Kevin's directing, despite being forced by a contractual clause in an effort to derail _Paranormal Activity 2_, is still solid. His mastery of the craft is evident with the garage trap (feat. the late Chester Bennington of Linkin Park) and the way the camerawork adds to the intensity of the scene, added to by the wonderful score of Charlie Clouser. This also applies to the opening trap of the film known as the public trap. These are the only two traps really worth watching, although the final one is sometimes fun to watch as well and _not_ for its terrible 3D effect of blood coming at the camera. If this is your first time watching _Saw 3D_, make your expectations as low as possible. It might reduce the sting of how horrifically this ends this saga in the series.