31.0°

Okay, first thing's first. This is "Saw VI." Yes, six. It is understandable if you want to get the fun with word play out of your system (I know I had to), so I'll wait while you do that. Feel free to talk out loud; the people around you won't mind. They might even help you out once they realize what you're doing.

Here, I'll get you started: I saw "Saw" first, and then I went to see "Saw 2" before I saw "Saw 3" although I must admit seeing "Saw 4" was a bit of a letdown since I saw "Saw 5" and wished I'd never seen "Saw 2" or "Saw" since seeing the first "Saw" meant I'd never be able to not see a "Saw" movie that came out. Like "Saw VI." Now that we have that taken care of, I did actually see "Saw VI," and as is customary with the "Saw" franchise, there were some surprises.

The first surprise is that "VI" doesn't suck. If you accept that the franchise has gone gradually downhill since the first movie - i.e. lower your expectations just a bit - then I think an argument could be made for "VI" being the best chapter since the original. The automatic sarcasm-laced response there, of course, is "that's not saying a whole lot."

Point taken.

The second surprise is "VI" doesn't quite follow the conventional layout of the previous "Saw" flicks. Don't worry, director Kevin Greutert isn't trying to get "Saw VI" nominated for best picture or make anybody cry (unless seeing someone cut their own arm off with a butcher knife makes you cry). However, "VI" isn't built entirely around the big reveal at the end when all the misdirection is uncovered and you either say, "Oh! Good twist!" or you raise your eyebrows and wonder why you wasted your time. I admit I didn't watch one through five from beginning to end in sequence to prepare myself for "VI," but as I recall all five of the previous "Saw" films were entirely about the final twist.

Not "VI." Writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton do keep the familiar elements like an opening with people waking up in the middle of one of Jigsaw's (Tobin Bell) "games." Incidentally, it is that beginning where we get to see a young woman chop her own arm off. They also have some minor plot twists and misdirection up their sleeves, but compared to the first five movies, "VI" is not focused entirely on fooling you. Instead, and I'm still having trouble believing I'm actually typing this, "Saw VI" comes with a message.

Yep. There it is. "Saw VI" has a message. Weird.

Greutert does his best, though, to deliver a rather scathing comment on health care in the U.S. amid torturing his various characters on screen. Somehow, Greutert, Dunstan and Melton even managed to tie the whole darn thing together, too. Jigsaw puts together his bloody little games for folks he feels need to be taught how valuable life is; he does this because of his own terminal illness. Unfortunately for William (Peter Outerbridge), he's the head of the insurance company that declined to cover Jigsaw's request for a new cancer treatment some time ago.

Jigsaw is dead. I know that's confusing. The man was meticulous, though. Think of "VI" as his dying wish, or wishes, being carried out. It just so happens that Jigsaw's master plan revolves around the state of health care, or lack thereof. That's bad for William, but not nearly as bad for the "Saw" franchise as I had feared.