As I continue watching the _Saw_ franchise in its entirety, leading up to Halloween 2023, the films continue to disappoint me. This was an even bigger disappointment all the way around than its predecessor, _Saw IV_ . The traps were fewer, the ingenuity (apart from the Pendulum Trap) of the traps wasn't as good, the overall story was more confusing (to me, anyway), more convoluted, and more difficult to follow. I'm not a huge fan of the time-leap backward/forward films, and this one (like its aforementioned predecessor) was too "busy" trying to interweave multiple stories and characters and wound up getting very muddy almost from the beginning. I mean, it was obvious what was was going on, who the villain was behind the "Jigsaw" traps, etc but even knowing that almost up-front, this film was just really weird and hard to follow. There was no recurring theme throughout, as there were in at least the first three films. Although Tobin Bell brilliantly revised his role as "Jigsaw" - and still carried the authenticity of despising murder and only using his methods to get people to "see the error of their ways" and begin to live life differently - he doesn't convey that ruthless detachment and desensitized aura to those whom he chooses to disciple; instead, they (Amanda, Hoffman, etc) keep coming across of wanting nothing but revenge and to inflict pain on their victims. To me, the one thing that made _Saw_ such a great movie was Bell's "believability": he carried the authenticity of a sociopath who truly believed the ends justify the means, ergo _"If I have to force someone to rip their own body to shreds to help them see the error of their ways, then I'm doing them - and society - a service. If they choose to not learn, then so be it."_ What a brilliant mentality to portray on-screen!...and that's (again, IMO) what made the original _Saw_ and its first two successors such brilliant psychological thrillers. In _Saw IV_ and _Saw V_ all I'm seeing is brutality, vengeance, pain inflicted for the sole pleasure of watching victims suffer...blood and gore but not much in the way of psychological torture. It seems the more these movies turn out (speaking specifically of the _Saw_ films) the more they just seem to be trying to "one-up" the preceding film in gruesomeness, brutality, gore, and the "traps"...and the story itself (thus, the viewers) suffer. I hope the next one will prove me wrong but this one earns only a "6". Even the traps in this one weren't that good. Not a big fan of this particular installment.

If you're good at anticipating the human mind, it leaves nothing to chance.

Jigsaw is dead. Does he have another apprentice to carry on his brand of bloody judgement? Will there be more elaborate traps to test the human condition to the max? You betcha.

If you are a fan of the series, and chances are that if you have sat down to watch this latest part then you must be, this one has enough about it to tickle the senses. Yet there's no getting away from the familiarity breeding contempt factor, narratively it offers nothing new, and irritatingly it becomes quite evident that it's obviously setting up the next film in the series. It's a sad state of affairs when the flashbacks involving Tobin Bell (Jigsaw) prove to be the film's only strengths, well there is the death traps to keep us awake I suppose... 4/10