Posted 12/03/2007 05:33:00 PM by Douglas

I realized today that I hadn't been to a movie since last summer, and since I blogged about the great one I saw yesterday, I thought I should fess up about the crappy one I saw on Saturday.

For reasons even I don't fully understand, I thought that Awake had an premise interesting enough to justify the super-low $13.50 matinee price. Sweet sassy-molassay, was I wrong.

First off, the premise of actually being conscious while under general anesthesia is about 5% of whole movie. The rest is screaming, Jessica Alba's lips and chin mole, and a contrived story line with numerous plot twists, each one more boring and predictable than the last. Half way through the movie I expected to see the actors lean into the camera frame and say "did you catch that?" when something finally happened that might end up being consequential. But that's not enough. After these critical scenes were revealed, the original scene was shown again, in flashback, to make sure to wack your dumb ass over the head with it, like a wet towel full of fish.

But if the story and how it's repeatedly told wasn't bad enough, there's the two lead actors, Hayden Christensen and Jessica Alba. Poor Mr. Christensen. I thought when he played the young Darth Vader in Episodes 2 & 3, he was supposed to be that bad. Apparently, his acting skills range all the way from tantrum to silent. If he's not screaming, he's really not any more noticeable than the background footage. But his screaming is so annoying, you come to appreciate the parts when he actually shuts up and hides under the bridge.

Then there's Jessica Alba. I know I'm one of the four heterosexual males on the planet that doesn't melt when they see that trollop on every men's magazine on the planet, but she just doesn't do it for me. She just looks a bit weird, like what would happen to a Mr. Potato Head that you left in the microwave too long. Almost a third of the movie was spent zoomed in her face while she read her lines with all the emotion of a Speak-N-Spell with a low 9-volt. So if you ever get bored looking at her, you're going to get really bored.

So I guess in another year and a half, I'll be ready to go back to the movie theater.

Parking was ample.