Disappointing

I'll honestly say, I didn't like this movie. And I came into it with somewhat decent expectations. I had such high expectations for the plot, the action, the visuals, the cinematography and of course the traps.
However, what I found lacked alot of the lacklustre that made the other movies so enjoyable.
The prosthetics department should've been fired. I mean.. if you're making a gory horror genred film, you need to keep the audience being convinced by what shown and presented. You can't have the audience immediately recognising how obviously bad and fake all the injuries, death and corpse scenes look. None of them looked believable. For example, Kerry's body looked literally like a store mannequin doll.
However I'll give slight credit to the autopsy scene, as it was genuinely unsettling.
But alas the bad far outweighs the 1 ok thing:
- Cop photographer getting the spike through the head = Now that was a terrible faked body
- Saw's traps and concepts: How woefully underwhelming. Gone are the ones of true uniqueness and some assemblence of rationally applied logic. No longer did he bury the true realisation of his monstrous criminal actions behind a shielded self delusion and belief of it all being for the greater good, a higher purpose, providing test opportunities on the fabric of humanity to earn spiritual/existential upliftment. He just seemed to be be falling deeper and deeper into his insanity and depravity as the movies went on. They soured that claimed kinda aspirational purpose of trying to allow people to reclaim their lives and gain back a piece of themselves; this piece being their ability to save themselves. But instead further demonstrating that all of it was done as a consequence of his own vain spite, vengefulness and revengeful obsession.
- Rigg: How the fuck did this dude qualify as a Saw victim, when he clearly didn't lead a sinful or problematic life. Clearly this was an apparent plot weakness, which must've been why his test/trial made no sense and was totally pointless. He felt a moral and ethical obligation to help others? He felt an obligation to save lives? And so, as punishment, he must witness and experience countless constant deaths of those placed in his path? I'm aware the movie claims its true lesson for this was about "learnig how to truly save a life", but this was a flimsy argument and definitely one Saw would create and orchestrate.
- Agent Perez+Strahm's test: How was testing them at all justified or fair in any way? Rigg was constantly finding himself confronted by circumstances requiring his chosen decision and action of: To save or not save someone. This was what he was being tested and tutored on. However each moment of this chosen option and its consequences should've only be based on each additional involved victim individually. Just themselves. Not the result and consequence of a confrontation by another person attempting to purely save themselves. Brenda had no way to save herself, so what was the point of her test? How could she have possibly learnt any lesson? Ivan was forced into a test that certainly didn't evidently give enough time for a decision to truly be made.

I could definitely continue, but that is enough for now.
To sum up, I didn't think the movie was all bad. I enjoyed seeing any scene further developing some backplot or backstory for prior movies. Further adding to the films lore and mystique; like the billy puppet, construction of Saw's voice, and how the wiretrap from Saw1 was inspired.
But I must say, I STILL PREFER SAW 1. The prior thought and detail into the plot and characters was evident and convincing, despite its tiny budget. Which makes it all the more impressive. The unique mental twists and turns was all you needed to become invested, not blatant and flagrant shock appeal of blood or gore.
WELL DONE JAMES WAN.