“Awake” (MGM)
It Won’t Put You To Sleep
Hayden Christensen of “Star Wars” fame and Jessica Alba of “Fantastic Four” fame team up in the new drama “Awake.” In the film they play young lovers and are very convincing in their roles. Christensen is not your most charismatic actor, and Alba is very good at acting good but very bad at acting bad. That means they both have a limited range, and the roles of the lovers are in this range.
Christensen plays Clay Beresford, a very wealthy young man who has a bad heart. He is in line for a heart transplant as soon as a donor heart is found. His girlfriend Sam (Alba) is very loving and supportive but she can’t win over Clay’s mama (Lena Olin). Mama B doesn’t think she is right for her Clay and says so loudly.
Clay decides to marry Sam anyway and then on their wedding night he gets notice there is a heart available for him. His good friend and physician Jack Harper (Terrence Howard) is going to do the surgery. Sam kisses him good-bye and he is off to get a new heart.
After being given the anesthesia by the anesthetist (Christopher McDonald) Clay goes to sleep, but wakes up as they are making the incision. He can’t speak or move but he is awake. It is your worst nightmare come true and it is happening to him.
From that point on things get more and more complicated and most of it stretches the limits of believability. People wander in and out of the operating room, and the hospital appears to be fairly deserted except for them.
Christensen is okay in his role. He is never going to get the “most charismatic or dynamic” award. The reason to see the movie however is Alba. As stated she is a competent actress as long as she is playing a good person or even a funny person, but when she tries to be evil – well that is not her forte’.
Howard just walks through his role but Olin gives it her best. Next to Alba, she is the best thing in the movie. You don’t know how powerful she is gong to be until the final scenes. Plus she has that mature sensual beauty thing going for her.
The movie is rated R for profanity and violence.
“Awake” isn’t going to win any awards as movie of the year but it will keep you entertained. You just have to suspend logic in order to accept the story, but then you have to do that with a lot of scripts lately.
I scored “Awake” a non-sleeping 5 out of 10.
