A far superior attempt at revitalizing a franchise than 2017’s puny spar of gatekeeping a legacy’s classic trademarks before they became dated after its shine and recycle process, Spiral: From the Book of Saw, however, decides to immerse itself into modern climate in wake of conscious America’s growing dislike towards police corruption, drawing eyes on a new killer targeting cop victims. With the silliness dried out and the ironically fun convolution no longer with us, this newest entry is instead a crime thriller that takes itself QUITE seriously. To our dismay though, it doesn’t seem to have the intuitive education nor depth to truly pioneer what it wants to tackle with this refined tone.
By no means does Chris Rock’s pitch vision actually feel achieved as the powerfully subverting movie it could be in Spiral, more so succeeding on being a 93-minute long establishing unit of rudimentary police brutality rundowns (for which we’re all too familiar with) that just so happens to also be building to a larger narrative conundrum on its sidelines. Howbeit, the spin-off does now have me very interested for the future given the potential it sets forth. I guess therein lies the problem though: what it wants to do ends up being more interesting than what it did do.
I’m sure those who watched the movie already can relate to this final comment a little more, but it really ticked me off too how they basically reveal the killer’s identity halfway through by awkwardly glossing over a pretty significant event, but then the movie proceeds to act like the audience wouldn’t put two and two together from that blatant plot jump alone. Don’t worry Spiral, we definitely figured it out before the big reveal thanks to that.
Verdict: C-
The Saw Franchise Ranked, 2021 Ranked
“Spiral: From the Book of Saw” is now playing in theaters.
Burning the Celluloid 
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