It's time to let go. The fucking motto. We're supposed to cherish our lives.

(being the final in a planned series of four posts trying to write something a little more penetrating about why I think it is that I've become so enamored--some would say obsessed--with the Saw films)

In terms of execution--no play on words intended--Saw IV is the least of the installments so far. This may be because it's the first installment not to be written or co-written by Leigh Whannell, who also starred in the original.

(Once again, there are spoilers below, but if you've made it this far you've either already seen the movies and don't care, or know you never will, and don't care. Then again, I once thought I never would. But I digress...)

As one reviewer (I can't remember who, otherwise I'd link) pointed out: For this plot to work, you have to believe that Jigsaw can correctly predict what anyone is going to do at any given time.

And that he can do so far in advance, given that most of his traps tend to take just a little time to set up. Unless you happen to have handy, say, a device that both gouges people's eyes out and tears off their limbs.

It's also confusing even by the Saw series' always non-linear standards. In the last scenes of Saw IV, it's revealed that the events of this film and Saw III have been unfolding at the same time. This takes the already quite bleak ending of III and lowers it down a couple of more pegs.

But with hindsight, it makes some sense to do such a double-back, since at the end of Saw III, Jigsaw is dead. (That's not much of a spoiler, since his head on a scale was a poster for Saw IV.) And it would seem that if we immediately go forward, his games are over.

But during his autopsy (which is gory, but still not as bad as the brain surgery in III), a tape is found in his stomach.

It tells the listener...

...By hearing this tape, some will assume that this is over but I am still among you...

Thematically, Saw IV also revisits some material from the last installment. The positive which Jigsaw is trying to effect here, in his ever-deranged way, is to get one officer Rigg to face up to his obsessions.

The questions are again: Is it ever better not to act than to act? And can you save everyone, or must some--perhaps most--of them (of us) save themselves (ourselves)?

Still though, it's evident that some more thought has gone into this movie (and its screenplay) than almost any directed by Tim Burton. When detective Hoffman repeats John/Jigsaw's "motto," (at least as John sees it)

We're supposed to cherish our lives.

Rigg replies:

Well, how the hell are we supposed to do that when this is our lives?

As an aside: Throughout the series, Jigsaw does seem to have a lot of anger focused on (and a lot of information about) one small group of cops: Matthews, Hoffman, Rigg. The ending of Saw IV suggests another explanation.

It also gives us a new main character, someone who, like Jigsaw, should be listened to very very closely because he never lies, but he doesn't always tell the whole truth. And who, at the end, is asked by John Kramer's voice from beyond the grave...

You feel you now have control, don't you?

It's also the first one, IIRC, in which no actual saw appears (although one is heard).

And the countdown continues.