Tonight I caught a showing of the not very much anticipated 'Saw 3.'

I will admit that, despite it's terrible acting, the first 'Saw' movie succeeded because of its writing. The second movie also had terrible acting, but they had a budget and managed to somehow pull off a decent flick. I enjoyed them both.

Though part three is was once again written by Leigh Whannell, the Australian who played one of the main characters in the first movie, it seems he was scrounging for ideas and came up shorthanded in the end, resulting in lazy writing and still terrible directing and acting.

After the first two movies I left the theatre with a sense of "whoa" that is hard to achieve, because I'm usually good at spotting endings and tie-ups just before you're supposed to be able to. I hate to get picky on details, but as a writer, I just have to. There's a huge difference between weaving hints and backstory throughout a plot while dropping subtle hints (that make sense - coming later in explanation) - which works well - and relying on gimmicky diction choices to provide a loophole for a real plot, and even then only use them as bookends. Yes, that was a long sentence, but I don't feel like redoing it.

FOR EXAMPLE, the whole "I am responsible for your child," with child replacing "boy," is a cheap trick. Also, the whole discussion about the divorce in the beginning tries to lead us to believe that the couple there are married, but it never says that, and it means a divorce from her husband (because she's having an affair). These serve as bookend plot devices, which are never good. There were a couple things, like the missing photograph piece, but that made it a tiny bit too obvious. Come on now.

Also, the thrill of the original 'Saw' movie was it's method to the madness, whereas the third installment is just straight 'method.' Ok, so we have four rooms, and we're going to progress through them, one by one, and have one challenge for each room. Between each room we will show a scene involving 'Jigsaw' and 'Amanda' and 'Other Bitch Who No One Cares About.' It felt like I was playing a game of Candy Land, working towards a predictable finish.

I couldn't buy the whole attachment of Shawnee Smith's character (Amanda) to Jigsaw. It seemed forced through flashbacks that were only mildly interesting and delivered in chunks, which goes back to weaving plot throughout a story. The story was: Past (scene from end of Saw 2), Present, Present, Present, Present....... BAM! FLASHBACK! SHE WAS IN ON IT THE WHOLE TIME! GET IT?! Present, Present..... Yawn.

Not all was bad though. There was still a couple scenes that made me uneasy, mainly the first one with the chains, and the puzzles seemed to get progressively less original as the movie went on, though I liked the rib-ripping device. The bullet-shooting necklace thing was cool looking, but we didn't even see it in action. Weak.

Also, from the first minute of the movie I could tell who would die because the style of writing has become somewhat predictable, almost a caricature of itself. Anyone remotely attached to the 'game,' other than one main character dies. The main character of course lives, because we need another cliffhanger for another sequel.

As my friend David said, this is how he felt afterwards: "Meh." I will ditto that. Dear Leigh Whannell - please don't make a part four.

Rating: 4.5/10