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Awake (2007)
The movie starts with a statistic, telling us that out of the 21 million operations that go ahead under anaesthetic each year, for 30,000, the patient is aware of what is going on, but paralysed - essentially, they are awake.
That just so happens to be the fate of one Clay Beresford, played here by Hayden Christensen. He's a young man, with a heart defect, he's been on the waiting list for an awful long time, awaiting a donor heart, but that's only one of his problems. He's a hot shot in the financial world, but lives in his father's shadow. He's dating his mother's secretary, Sam Lockwood, played by the ever gorgeous Jessica Alba, but insists they keep the relationship secret from his over-protective mother.
But what everyone wants to see in this movie, what everything pushes towards, is the surgery. We know it's going to happen, but it seems to take an awful long time to get there. Hayden Christensen displays little better acting talent here than in did in Attack of the Clones, and whilst I could look at Jessica Alba all day, their difficult relationship is hardly intriguing. Fast forward half an hour, they're secretly married, and bingo, off goes the pager, one heart on ice awaiting operation.
So here we are, the part of the movie we're waiting for. He's on the table, ready to be operated on by his trusted team of surgeons, then in walks Dr Larry Lupin, played by the man who will always be Shooter from Happy Gilmore, Christopher McDonald - whether it's his screw up, or if Clay is just unfortunate, is not revealed, but the anaesthetic doesn't do what it ought to, and poor Clay is aware of all that goes on around him. We are made aware of this through his voice-over, which, to be honest, lacks the necessary panic in his voice.
When he becomes aware that something's going on that's not quite right, he has an out of body experience and goes wandering around the hospital, trying to piece together what's going on, but the crux of the matter is that in doing this, he doesn't achieve a single thing. He's out on the operating table and for all of his out of body musings, is completely powerless, so all along you know that his shouting at doctors and family is going to achieve nothing.
It's an unfortunate situation when your entire idea for a movie doesn't work. The fact that Clay is awake throughout the operation is merely a means to tell the story, it has no bearing on it whatsoever. As Hayden Christensen doesn't put in a performance that convinces you of the horror of the whole situation, that aspect is lost on it too.
By far the most interesting character in the story is pushed entirely to one side. The mother, played by Lena Olin would have been a far better focus for the movie - her motivation for attempting to bring in a different team of surgeons, her mistrust of her son's girlfriend, and her decision at the end could have made for a very powerful movie, but to be honest, as it was, it was just a bit stupid.
There were pluses - Terrence Howard, as one of the surgeon's performing the operation was pretty good, there was a little inner-conflict going on there, and as I've already mentioned, regardless of acting ability, I'm a fan of Alba.
It's not the longest movie, but even at 75 minutes I felt they were struggling to stretch the concept out that far, which is a shame, as ignoring the whole 'awake' concept, there was a story in there which, from a different perspective, may have been worth telling.
The movie starts with a statistic, telling us that out of the 21 million operations that go ahead under anaesthetic each year, for 30,000, the patient is aware of what is going on, but paralysed - essentially, they are awake.
That just so happens to be the fate of one Clay Beresford, played here by Hayden Christensen. He's a young man, with a heart defect, he's been on the waiting list for an awful long time, awaiting a donor heart, but that's only one of his problems. He's a hot shot in the financial world, but lives in his father's shadow. He's dating his mother's secretary, Sam Lockwood, played by the ever gorgeous Jessica Alba, but insists they keep the relationship secret from his over-protective mother.
But what everyone wants to see in this movie, what everything pushes towards, is the surgery. We know it's going to happen, but it seems to take an awful long time to get there. Hayden Christensen displays little better acting talent here than in did in Attack of the Clones, and whilst I could look at Jessica Alba all day, their difficult relationship is hardly intriguing. Fast forward half an hour, they're secretly married, and bingo, off goes the pager, one heart on ice awaiting operation.
So here we are, the part of the movie we're waiting for. He's on the table, ready to be operated on by his trusted team of surgeons, then in walks Dr Larry Lupin, played by the man who will always be Shooter from Happy Gilmore, Christopher McDonald - whether it's his screw up, or if Clay is just unfortunate, is not revealed, but the anaesthetic doesn't do what it ought to, and poor Clay is aware of all that goes on around him. We are made aware of this through his voice-over, which, to be honest, lacks the necessary panic in his voice.
When he becomes aware that something's going on that's not quite right, he has an out of body experience and goes wandering around the hospital, trying to piece together what's going on, but the crux of the matter is that in doing this, he doesn't achieve a single thing. He's out on the operating table and for all of his out of body musings, is completely powerless, so all along you know that his shouting at doctors and family is going to achieve nothing.
It's an unfortunate situation when your entire idea for a movie doesn't work. The fact that Clay is awake throughout the operation is merely a means to tell the story, it has no bearing on it whatsoever. As Hayden Christensen doesn't put in a performance that convinces you of the horror of the whole situation, that aspect is lost on it too.
By far the most interesting character in the story is pushed entirely to one side. The mother, played by Lena Olin would have been a far better focus for the movie - her motivation for attempting to bring in a different team of surgeons, her mistrust of her son's girlfriend, and her decision at the end could have made for a very powerful movie, but to be honest, as it was, it was just a bit stupid.
There were pluses - Terrence Howard, as one of the surgeon's performing the operation was pretty good, there was a little inner-conflict going on there, and as I've already mentioned, regardless of acting ability, I'm a fan of Alba.
It's not the longest movie, but even at 75 minutes I felt they were struggling to stretch the concept out that far, which is a shame, as ignoring the whole 'awake' concept, there was a story in there which, from a different perspective, may have been worth telling.
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Awake (2007)
The movie starts with a statistic, telling us that out of the 21 million operations that go ahead under anaesthetic each year, for 30,000, the patient is aware of what is going on, but paralysed - essentially, they are awake.
That just so happens to be the fate of one Clay Beresford, played here by Hayden Christensen. He's a young man, with a heart defect, he's been on the waiting list for an awful long time, awaiting a donor heart, but that's only one of his problems. He's a hot shot in the financial world, but lives in his father's shadow. He's dating his mother's secretary, Sam Lockwood, played by the ever gorgeous Jessica Alba, but insists they keep the relationship secret from his over-protective mother.
But what everyone wants to see in this movie, what everything pushes towards, is the surgery. We know it's going to happen, but it seems to take an awful long time to get there. Hayden Christensen displays little better acting talent here than in did in Attack of the Clones, and whilst I could look at Jessica Alba all day, their difficult relationship is hardly intriguing. Fast forward half an hour, they're secretly married, and bingo, off goes the pager, one heart on ice awaiting operation.
So here we are, the part of the movie we're waiting for. He's on the table, ready to be operated on by his trusted team of surgeons, then in walks Dr Larry Lupin, played by the man who will always be Shooter from Happy Gilmore, Christopher McDonald - whether it's his screw up, or if Clay is just unfortunate, is not revealed, but the anaesthetic doesn't do what it ought to, and poor Clay is aware of all that goes on around him. We are made aware of this through his voice-over, which, to be honest, lacks the necessary panic in his voice.
When he becomes aware that something's going on that's not quite right, he has an out of body experience and goes wandering around the hospital, trying to piece together what's going on, but the crux of the matter is that in doing this, he doesn't achieve a single thing. He's out on the operating table and for all of his out of body musings, is completely powerless, so all along you know that his shouting at doctors and family is going to achieve nothing.
It's an unfortunate situation when your entire idea for a movie doesn't work. The fact that Clay is awake throughout the operation is merely a means to tell the story, it has no bearing on it whatsoever. As Hayden Christensen doesn't put in a performance that convinces you of the horror of the whole situation, that aspect is lost on it too.
By far the most interesting character in the story is pushed entirely to one side. The mother, played by Lena Olin would have been a far better focus for the movie - her motivation for attempting to bring in a different team of surgeons, her mistrust of her son's girlfriend, and her decision at the end could have made for a very powerful movie, but to be honest, as it was, it was just a bit stupid.
There were pluses - Terrence Howard, as one of the surgeon's performing the operation was pretty good, there was a little inner-conflict going on there, and as I've already mentioned, regardless of acting ability, I'm a fan of Alba.
It's not the longest movie, but even at 75 minutes I felt they were struggling to stretch the concept out that far, which is a shame, as ignoring the whole 'awake' concept, there was a story in there which, from a different perspective, may have been worth telling.
The movie starts with a statistic, telling us that out of the 21 million operations that go ahead under anaesthetic each year, for 30,000, the patient is aware of what is going on, but paralysed - essentially, they are awake.
That just so happens to be the fate of one Clay Beresford, played here by Hayden Christensen. He's a young man, with a heart defect, he's been on the waiting list for an awful long time, awaiting a donor heart, but that's only one of his problems. He's a hot shot in the financial world, but lives in his father's shadow. He's dating his mother's secretary, Sam Lockwood, played by the ever gorgeous Jessica Alba, but insists they keep the relationship secret from his over-protective mother.
But what everyone wants to see in this movie, what everything pushes towards, is the surgery. We know it's going to happen, but it seems to take an awful long time to get there. Hayden Christensen displays little better acting talent here than in did in Attack of the Clones, and whilst I could look at Jessica Alba all day, their difficult relationship is hardly intriguing. Fast forward half an hour, they're secretly married, and bingo, off goes the pager, one heart on ice awaiting operation.
So here we are, the part of the movie we're waiting for. He's on the table, ready to be operated on by his trusted team of surgeons, then in walks Dr Larry Lupin, played by the man who will always be Shooter from Happy Gilmore, Christopher McDonald - whether it's his screw up, or if Clay is just unfortunate, is not revealed, but the anaesthetic doesn't do what it ought to, and poor Clay is aware of all that goes on around him. We are made aware of this through his voice-over, which, to be honest, lacks the necessary panic in his voice.
When he becomes aware that something's going on that's not quite right, he has an out of body experience and goes wandering around the hospital, trying to piece together what's going on, but the crux of the matter is that in doing this, he doesn't achieve a single thing. He's out on the operating table and for all of his out of body musings, is completely powerless, so all along you know that his shouting at doctors and family is going to achieve nothing.
It's an unfortunate situation when your entire idea for a movie doesn't work. The fact that Clay is awake throughout the operation is merely a means to tell the story, it has no bearing on it whatsoever. As Hayden Christensen doesn't put in a performance that convinces you of the horror of the whole situation, that aspect is lost on it too.
By far the most interesting character in the story is pushed entirely to one side. The mother, played by Lena Olin would have been a far better focus for the movie - her motivation for attempting to bring in a different team of surgeons, her mistrust of her son's girlfriend, and her decision at the end could have made for a very powerful movie, but to be honest, as it was, it was just a bit stupid.
There were pluses - Terrence Howard, as one of the surgeon's performing the operation was pretty good, there was a little inner-conflict going on there, and as I've already mentioned, regardless of acting ability, I'm a fan of Alba.
It's not the longest movie, but even at 75 minutes I felt they were struggling to stretch the concept out that far, which is a shame, as ignoring the whole 'awake' concept, there was a story in there which, from a different perspective, may have been worth telling.