Sometimes you really have to wonder about Hollywood. “Awake” (official site) had a lot of good things going for it. It stars Jessica Alba, Hayden Christensen, Terrence Howard, and Lena Olin so it’s got a pretty decent cast. It even has a somewhat decent premise:
A psychological thriller that tells the story of a man (Hayden Christensen) who suffers “anesthetic awareness” and finds himself awake and aware, but paralyzed, during heart surgery. His young wife (Jessica Alba) must wrestle with her own demons as a drama unfolds around them.
But the reviews for the film were off the wall bad. Apparently, the director didn’t do a very good job of making the medical parts of the film believable. I’m thinking that might be important since the whole concept is medical based. Of course, I’m still not sold on Christensen as a dramatic actor (he managed to bring Natalie Portman down to near vomit inducing levels) so I can see how a film that centers around him could be a problem. Still, Jessica Alba is fun to watch.
It still makes me a bit disappointed to see a film that had so much going for it open so lousy. After two weeks it’s done a grand total of $10.7 million and looks to finish with about $20 million total. I blame the studio, of course, because it has to be their fault when a film fails so badly. I mean, even the smallest bit of advertising can trick enough people to see a film that it makes more money than that. I don’t know if this film was ever even advertised. I couldn’t even get the official website to do anything but display a photo of Christensen. Crazy.Video – “Awake” Trailer:
lol…because every film deserves its moment
I wonder if this one will be a movie that the studios don’t send to Richard Roeper for review, and get the wagging finger of shame
Mike Olbinski’s last blog post..The first X-Files 2 set photos appear on the web