Saw VI...

Well... I'm still pretty torn on what to say about this movie. It was an improvement over Saw V (Kevin Greutert is the man, fuck David Hackl), but it still wasn't the same as the first three movies. It carried the same basic complaints that I had with Saw IV and Saw V; it was very rushed and there was too much going on at one time. The amount of flashbacks was insane and it was very back and forth. Thank God for the special filter they use for flashback sequences or you wouldn't know where the hell they were on the timeline.

Main disappointments:
-SERIOUS lack of Amanda. For all the hype and announcements of her return, she wasn't in it nearly as much as she could have/should have been. I bet if you added up her screentime it would total somewhere between 3-5 minutes.
-Bringing Agent Perez back for 10 minutes just to kill her off again. She was splashed with hot coffee and then stabbed numerous times. Coffee? Really?
-Very predictable, in terms of William. Granted I did read spoilers before I went to the theater, but it was quite easy to figure out. A lot easier than previous movies.
-Jill's involvement. Can we all say predictable together in unison next to the Lionsgate offices?
-Hoffman's survival. What the fuck? Now we have to deal with that, now facially deformed, asshole for yet another movie? Thanks a lot.

Angering disappointments:
-The ending. The whole ending just pissed me off.
-The flashback showing Amanda's involvement with the loss of Gideon and the explanation of the letter wasn't enough. Showing her freaking out in the corner for 5 seconds after Cecil slams the door into Jill's abdomen wasn't enough to justify all the hype and the photo release. It just wasn't enough. Making us wait 3 years just to hear Hoffman read the letter was retarded, too.

On the subject of Amanda's return, allow me to elaborate on what exactly was revealed in Saw VI; basically we find out the contents of the letter we see upset her so much way back in Saw III. As we found out in Saw VI, Hoffman wrote the letter and placed it inside of the envelope along with what appears to be a key. The letter was abandoned in Saw VSaw IV. Hoffman states in the letter that if she did not kill Lynn he would reveal this information to John.
Before this flashback, there was one of John trying to convince Jill that his work was superior to hers and that his actually worked. He claimed that addiction was incurable as long as you keep fueling the fire with alternative drugs. Jill disagrees and John makes her witness his "proof" which happens to be a clean and sober Amanda standing in the corner of her office. John tells Jill to take a close look and remember that she once mentioned to him that Amanda was a lost, hopeless soul. Amanda then says that his games work and that he helped her.
We also finally see Amanda and Hoffman interact in a short flashback. Hoffman enters the room with Timothy Young (from the Rack in Saw III) in a wheelbarrow and Amanda is pushing John into the room via wheelchair. Amanda and John both comment on the way Hoffman is setting up the trap and Amanda criticizes the lack of attention to detail. John offers advice on how to quickly improve it. As they move away from John, Amanda asks Hoffman when his test is. He says that he didn’t need one because he appreciated the value of life. Amanda criticizes again and says he knows nothing about the value of life because he is still dragging his knuckles on the ground. She adds on that he needs to get used to her because she’s not going anywhere. As she walks away to attend to John he adds on, “You sure about that?” Amanda then takes John down the hallways of the Gideon building and they run into Jill. John instructs Amanda to go kidnap Lynn from the hospital and to do it quickly. As she walks away she and Jill exchange glances and Amanda is obviously stricken with discomfort at the sight of Jill. and has now been fully revealed... Amanda technically is the reason John and Jill lost Gideon. We see, in a very short flashback, Cecil and Amanda outside of Jill's clinic arguing and Amanda appears to force Cecil to break into the clinic to get her a drug fix. Amanda remains outside and witnesses Cecil slam the door into Jill's abdomen causing her to miscarry. As you see Jill begin to collapse and Cecil run away, you see Amanda begin to freak out and collapse in a corner outside. John runs in and finds Jill on the floor as we see in

Other than shots from previous films (mainly Saw III), that’s about all we see from Amanda.

If you have read anything that I’ve said about Saw in the past, or know me personally, you know Amanda is my favorite character. How do I feel about these flashbacks and the revelation of the letter’s content? Not too bad, but there is always room for improvement. I was hoping to see a flashback of Hoffman and/or John kidnapping Amanda to put her in the Reverse Bear trap or see more details of her arrest or see more of her addict life in Jill’s clinic, not necessarily just her making Cecil break into it. John telling Jill that she thought Amanda was a lost soul tells me that Jill treated her for a significant amount of time. I’m still curious to see the timeline between Amanda’s jail sentence, her abusive drug habit/lifestyle, her test, and her partnership with John.

What this all does finally prove is Hoffman’s manipulation and framing of Amanda. By him writing the letter and giving her consequences if she didn’t kill Lynn is blackmail. Flat out blackmail. Amanda’s motivation obviously was to keep the sensitive information from John by any means necessary. We still don’t know if Kerry and Troy’s traps were truly rigged by Amanda. Agents Strahm and Perez do state in Saw IV that Amanda couldn’t have gotten Kerry into the trap herself and that she would have required help. How do we know Hoffman didn’t give Amanda yet another ultimatum for that trap and manipulated her to make it unwinnable? We don’t. The same would/could be with Troy. Even if Amanda is the one actually making the trap, it was under influence of another person. In this case it would be Hoffman. That tells me that he is the true killer and that Amanda was the true Jigsaw apprentice. She wanted to please John and fulfill his work. There were a couple questions I had with this; did Amanda stay with John as an apprentice out of guilt? If she would have let Lynn go, as instructed by John, and lived would she have continued John’s work or would she have disappeared and let Hoffman carry it out?

I didn’t think Saw VI was bad, but it wasn’t great. I would rank it right next to Saw IV which would put it behind I-III and far ahead of V. The fact that David Hackl is returning for Saw VII is ridiculous and I will not be seeing it. I mean it this time. His directing and vision of Saw V was the worst I have ever seen… not to mention that VII is going to be in 3-D. Lionsgate, what the fuck? These movies shouldn’t have been continued past Saw III, but I can admit that Saw VI was a pleasant surprise after seeing two bad sequels before it.