Saw opens with a jarring jolt, as two men wake up to find themselves chained to pipes in a fetid bathroom. Yet rather than remain in this claustrophobic situation, the movie opens up into a standard and gleefully grisly serial-killer thriller. It doesn’t help that one of the trapped men is played by Cary Elwes, who revives the haughty, anchorman mannerisms he brought to the fairy-tale spoof The Princess Bride, except that this time it doesn’t seem to be part of the joke.
