I browse on Netflix quite often and quite frequently, as do most Netflix subscribers. Despite this, I usually watch things I’m familiar with, with the occasional Netflix Original being picked on a standard watching day. During a recent browsing session, I found a movie that seemed to have a decent premise. That movie is titled Awake.
The story of Awake is pretty simple: Everyone in the world suddenly can’t fall asleep and an EMP seems to have run through the area. The main character is an ex-soldier that must fight her way through some major obstacles and protect her daughter. Once again, a basic premise that has the potential to be at least mediocre for a movie.
However, I suppose I didn’t anticipate it being as bad as it really was. I actually couldn’t stop watching due to how terrible it was. I think this might have topped Brazen, which is another movie I have very strong feelings about as well.
Awake sets itself up with one of the worst pacing structures out there and some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen in a movie. I felt like Awake tried to mash up a bunch of different tropes across multiple genres, including horror, to try and tie some sort of a story together. Unfortunately for the movie, there is no real story at its core and it just delved into a mess pretty quickly.
Everyone not being able to go to sleep is a pretty wild thing, but you don’t expect the city to turn into the Purge overnight. Well, apparently it did.
And also, there’s a cult that believes the main character’s daughter is their saving grace or some chosen one or whatever.
This is within like the first half-hour of the movie, by the way.
With its sub-par acting and awful story and plot, it’s a wonder this movie actually exists. There was pretty much nothing interesting or engaging about this film. It’s amazing that a movie about not being able to fall asleep actually made me fall asleep. I guess the problem the characters in this film had could have been solved if they just watched their own movie!
There is basically no resolution to the film, no real understanding of why the events unfolded, and no shortage of falling onto stupidity to try and make it work. I feel like the writers were given the budget of a potato chip and told to make some uber intense science fiction film. They attempted to fill in the blanks by throwing in some cheap gore, but guess what? Gore doesn’t sell a movie if the movie is pure garbage.
Overall, if you were thinking about watching this movie, spare yourself and go watch literally anything else instead.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
