Agent Strahm (Scott Patterson) closes in on Jigsaw’s apprentice Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) in this cop-on-cop sequel they should have called Interminable Affairs.

By 2008 the Saw timeline had become so convoluted, retconned and reverse-engineered that it actually started moving backwards, with more of Saw V taking place in flashback than the present. Most of the movie is spent watching Luke from off of Gilmore Girls attempting to work out what we already know (that Hoffman is working with John Kramer) by explaining the plot aloud to himself, despite us having just seen it unfold in flashback, which Strahm also seems to be watching.

This leaves the film without any forward momentum, resulting in a torture porn sequel so static it verges on calming. Even the characters trapped in the obligatory medieval-themed escape room (including Julie Benz in a wig that appears to have been rescued from a bin) treat their predicament with a kind of eye-rolling acceptance, as though waking up chained to one of Jigsaw’s torture devices is a minor inconvenience that will eventually happen to most Americans, like jury duty or being White House press secretary.

That torture warehouse sub-plot is almost entirely irrelevant to the police procedural storyline and the film treats it as such, without putting any effort into the usually meaty Rube Goldberg machines. The movie opens with an admittedly fun pit-and-pendulum contraption, but the few remaining devices are less Poe and more Tinky Winky. There is almost no gore this time around, adding to the film’s calming qualities, alongside a notable lack of twists. This is ironic given the tagline, “You won’t believe how it ends”, which is the world’s laziest slogan and one that strongly suggests they printed the posters before finishing the script.

The series’ former production designer David Hackl (by name and by nature) steps into the director’s chair, and while one does not miss Darren Lynn Bousman’s grinding jump-cuts every two seconds, his dull direction has none of the franchise’s usual nasty, guttural feeling – though the bargain-basement dialogue (“You’re a monster!” “So are you!”) isn’t exactly pleasant to listen to.

Ultimately Saw V is so worried that you might walk out that at one point Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) directly tries to reassure the audience: “In the end all the pieces will fit together.” He might as well have said, “Keep giving us your money or we’ll have to think of an ending.”