Sawing through another sequel

I turned away from the screen more than watched it when I went to see Saw III today. Here's the man chained to the walls of a small room with hooks piercing his arms, legs, ankles, sides and chin. A bomb will blow in a minute and some change and he must rip those hooks off to get out in time.
A woman trapped in a contraption hooked into her ribcage must dip her hand into acid to retrieve a rapidly dissolving key at the bottom.
And a naked woman is chained in an ice room as freezing water is sprayed on her. And all of this is the work of our villain played ably by Tobin Bell.
The first movie had one hell of a devilish twist, and Saw II boasted a nice performance by Danny Walhberg, but the third, while at times clever, shows that this series may have run its course.
After all, you know what you're going to get: a series of nasty little tests that end with somebody's head crushed or arm twisted almost clear off. And though it might be fun to think what you might do in any of those crappy situations where you have to decide between screaming your head off or smashing your foot in to get out of an ankle chain, you don't want to keep seeing the same thing over and over again.
Bottom line: for all of its twists and turns, Saw III is horrifying only in its predictability. The graphic violence is not meant to scare but to shock.
Nowhere is there any sense of tension. Nowhere is there any investment in character. Nowhere is there much good acting, unless you count Tobin Bell's skin-crawlingly creepy performance.
A co-worker couldn't believe I liked Hostel. She thought it was close to pornography with all the gratuitous nudity. And yes, there is gratuitous nudity.
But I will argue that the movie's second half is thick with suspense, and the first time I saw it, I didn't know what was going to happen. I squirmed, I jumped and I was completely undone by the movie's final beyond-intense 15 minutes.
From Saw III, all I got was a tease for another sequel. I think it's time to put an end to this franchise. Please. This can't go on like Friday the 13th.