Saw IV gives us more gore, less brains. Wait, poor choice of words. I should say we are *shown* more brains but not required to use our own.
Jigsaw, having been killed in an earlier movie, comes back but in the stupidest, most anticlimactic way possible. Almost as if the writers were sitting around 5 minutes til deadline, having elaborated on all the gory stuff, then suddenly realizing 'whoa wait, jigsaw is dead. Who's going to be behind all this crap? Aha..!' (I won't spoil it)
Aside from that, even the killings lack the poetic irony that made all the other movies so fun to watch. The whole gimmick of the Saw franchise is that the killings are each part of some twisted morality lesson, sorta like Mother Goose on psychotic drugs. But here, there didn't seem to be much effort put into the karma content; instead they focused on wacky gadgets that mutilate people in interesting ways. Cool stuff, but you're left wondering 'What did that have to do with anything?'
Example: Some drug addict is put into a contraption where the only way to free himself is to slice his face up with knives. Get it? I didn't either. But as the killer hastily explains: "Because you've acted so UGLY in life, now you'll have to live your life being UGLY!" Get it? I didn't either.
Ultimately the movie wasn't all bad because it held my attention hoping for some grand epiphany at the end. There is indeed a "surprise twist" but it seemed to be thrown in just for the sake of a surprise twist.
I'm pretty bummed because I bought the whole Saw set and was enjoying them all up until now. But SAW 4 threw a real WRENCH in the works.
