Spiral: From the Book of Saw

After some success with comedians dipping their toes into the horror genre with Jordan Peele giving us Get Out and Danny McBride helping bring Halloween back to the big screen, I was more than curious as to why Chris Rock was wanting to jump-start the Saw series. Apparently, he went to the studio and told them that he was such a big fan that he had a great idea for them and they jumped at the chance to have a big name attached to a recognized series. Adding more "WTF" to this mix, Samuel L. Jackson stars in the film as well. While this film most certainly has the biggest names of the series, the film as a whole is one of the lamer entries.

We have a Jigsaw copycat that seems to be taking out dirty cops. Now the pig mask makes sense...I get it. Chris Rock is a detective that ratted out a dirty cop years ago and now no one on the force trusts him. He is thrown into this case as the lead and is partnered up with a rookie, Max Minghella to bring down this cold-blooded killer. Samuel L. Jackson plays his father, a retired officer and every other character in this film is a cop. So I guess the killer has to be a cop, right?

When I saw the original Saw, my jaw hit the floor with the twist reveal at the end. It was one of the first times I remember being genuinely shocked and while the subsequent films never reached those heights, I applauded them for giving their best efforts to still surprise the viewers. Each film managed to pull off a surprise here or there. I knew the twist to this movie within the first fifteen minutes. I felt like I was smacked in the face with how obvious it was that when the film finally got to the reveal, I felt a little insulted that it was true. Ontop of that, the REASON for why the killer does what he does is also OBVIOUS. Once you know who the killer is, the reason behind it is clear as day.

Chris Rock does his best but falls short of being a believable straight man. We are introduced to him doing a comedy bit, then he becomes all serious for the rest of the film. The problem is I can't take him seriously. His yelling just reminds me of his stand-up bits. I think he should have gone the Danny McBride route and stayed behind the camera and have someone else fill that role. I was laughing uncontrollably during the climactic finale.

Spiral: Book of Saw adds nothing new to the genre, it thinks it does, but it really doesn't. It wants to be "of the times" so it can throw shade at dirty cops, but then our lead protagonist beats a confession out of someone. Isn't he supposed to be the straight and narrow guy that calls out these antics?