Spiral: From The Book Of Saw Review - 4 Ups & 6 Downs
2. It's A Tonal Mess
Though most of the Saw movies have a pretty firm handle on their interior tone, Spiral is the first film in the series to try something a little different, with mixed results.
The eight prior films more-or-less take themselves incredibly seriously, beyond a few darkly comedic traps which skate on the fringes of social satire.
But Spiral flirts with more outright comedy through its dialogue, with Rock's Detective Banks dropping ridiculous one-liners in the police precinct like his life depends on it.
Sadly much of this dialogue lands with a thud and only upends the grim tone of the film otherwise.
Part of the problem is undeniably the hurried pacing, which forces to film to move between moods at a whiplash-inducing clip, but also the writing is just straight-up not good in a lot of these scenes.
It almost feels as though Rock just improvised some of the inane cop banter, because despite his generally decent performance, the comedy shtick really doesn't fit.