"Spiral" doesn't really change up the game

Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)

Apparently, Chris Rock wanted to play a game and potentially saw off his foot. When it was first announced that Rock convinced Lionsgate of an idea to resuscitate the “Saw” franchise—a moviegoing horror event for seven consecutive Halloweens that launched the “torture-porn” nomenclature—color one intrigued to see what he had in mind. Adding Rock’s stand-up comic sensibility to this torture-forward series and having him stretch his dramatic muscles alongside Samuel L. Jackson should be a selling point. While “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” is certainly better than some of the middle “Saw” installments (particularly in terms of production value), adds an audacious concept to the mix, and brings some star power, the end result is more of a bummer than a must-see “Saw” shake-up. Against popular opinion, the Spierig brothers actually brought a fresher, more assured hand (and more variance in color) when they retconned the material with 2017’s “Jigsaw.”

Chris Rock (serving as an executive producer) leads the charge as Ezekiel “Zeke” Banks, a brash, jaded homicide detective for the Metropolitical Police Department. Ever since he ratted out his dirty partner, Zeke is seen as a snitch to his colleagues, despite his dad, Marcus (Samuel L. Jackson), being the former chief of police. Captain Angie Garza (Marisol Nichols) makes Zeke take lead and partner up with rookie William Schenk (Max Minghella) just in time for a new case. When the partners go to check out a body splattered across the train tracks, it turns out that someone—a Jigsaw copycat—is targeting corrupt officers from the precinct and implicating them for a past crime. This new killer also nicely gift-wraps clues for Zeke.

Long after John “Jigsaw” Kramer (Tobin Bell) flatlined at the end of “Saw III” and gave his God-playing plans to apprentices, it seems like “try again” has been the motto of a franchise that has persisted like the Energizer Bunny with two missing feet, a severed ear, and a gouged-out eye. To give credit where credit is due, “Spiral” is a grisly police procedural with a point-of-view. Lest we forget, the previous films targeted police officers to some degree, but this one is daring, at least superficially, because now it just feels more topical. Nobody cried foul when the healthcare system was targeted in “Saw VI,” but the “Blue Lives Matter” or cops with the “shoot first and ask questions later” mentality probably won’t be pleased. Aside from that timeliness, the movie otherwise comes off as a watchable if uninspired copycat itself.

For what is essentially “Saw IX” (yes, even horror fans know Roman numerals!), “Spiral” is effective enough for the reasons people keep returning. It’s those morality-testing death traps invented with a twisted Rube Goldberg-level of engineer expertise, allowing the viewer to vicariously ask “what would I do?” in order to survive. Darren Lynn Bousman (who has directed “Saw II,” “Saw III, and “Saw IV”) is even back at the helm, and he returns to the jittery editing tricks when one of the games is underway to ramp up the feeling of panic and disorientation. The traps themselves do all make one cringe and squirm as long as there are close-ups to blades slicing necks and fingers being ripped. A tongue-ripping on the train tracks is a particularly brutal and rattling way to kick off the film, proving it means business at least in the splatter department. Hot-wax waterboarding is another. While suitably gnarly, the traps don’t really come with a maniacal “would you rather?” game where the lesser of two evils is chosen to live, missing the point of Jigsaw’s original intentions to teach a lesson. There’s also very little tension in each lead-up to a trap: a cop goes off alone, only to be ambushed by the pig-masked killer, and it’s the one jump scare this movie has in its rusty arsenal.

Besides the traps, the “Saw” movies have always packed a doozy of a twist, even if it’s impossibly ludicrous, through a convoluted spider web of flashbacks within flashbacks. The whodunit here in the script, written by Josh Stolberg and Pete Goldfinger (2017’s “Jigsaw”), is a bit of a nonevent, unintentionally showing its hand too early. There is a lot of circling back to previous scenes just in case audiences weren’t paying attention (as well as flashbacks from Zeke’s memory even when he and his bad facial hair weren’t fully present), but by the time the killer is unveiled, we’ve just been tapping our feet, waiting for Zeke to figure it out already.

Unorthodox casting aside, Chris Rock is strenuously committed to taking this material seriously, but his performance as Zeke comes off loud and one-note. Whenever Rock does tone it down, there’s little to no gravitas there. When he cracks jokes about the questionable wokeness in “Forrest Gump,” it’s a breath of fresh air but does very little to make you forget you’re watching a stand-up comedian role-playing a hard-boiled cop. Samuel L. Jackson gets to be Samuel L. Jackson as Rock’s father in his few scenes before going missing; he does get to insert his obligatory “motherfucker” into a key line about playing games, and it’s much appreciated.

For its several strengths, “Spiral” has its trade-offs. The voice of the copycat is less creepy than the modified voice of the already-gravely Tobin Bell, while the pig-cop marionette is cleverly interwoven into the context of the final trap. The film also has a bigger scope with more locations than just dingy warehouses, and without losing its grime, there are more pops of color this time between the fireworks in the opening to the red spirals the killer leaves. Beyond the technical merits, the script has the desire to say something about police reform but only shallowly scrapes the bone. At the same time—because it feels different through a 2021 lens—the endgame is pretty potent (and cue Charlie Clouser's "Hello Zepp" theme). Based on more “from the book of Saw” being teased, Lionsgate doesn’t seem ready to slam the door on this franchise quite yet. Expectations should still be tempered with this game-changing attempt, but make your choice.

Grade: C 

Lionsgate is releasing “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” (93 min.) in theaters on May 14, 2021.