Awaken (2015)

Undescribable Perfection

Simply A Masterpiece

Just perfect...

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

LEFT TO DIE is a B-movie that exists under a ton of different titles including AWAKEN and A PERFECT VACATION. Whichever way you look at it, it's a pretty stupid production that benefits from poor direction turning the whole thing into a very cheesy experience. Like THE CONDEMNED and BATTLE ROYALE before it, the story sees a group of strangers being individually kidnapped and released on a jungle island, where they will become unwitting donors for an illegal organ donation scheme.The story is vapid and clichéd, the script predictable in the extreme. The cheesy fight scenes are about as bad as you'd expect. As the lead actress, Natalie Burn has zero presence on screen. The only reason to watch this is the exemplary supporting cast, which takes some beating in B-movie terms. The triumvirate of Vinnie Jones, Jason London, and Daryl Hannah play the villains, while the protagonists are played by the likes of Robert Davi, Edward Furlong, and Daz Crawford. Even martial arts supremo Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez has a flashback cameo as the protagonist's father. It's not high entertainment, but at least the familiar faces kept me watching.

The Three Acts:The initial tableaux: Billie wakes up on a beach, battered and covered with sand. Her short term memory is shot, but she remembers to find her dog tags before proceeding inland. She soon joins a chase where one side is armed, and she is among the chased. Erin is separated and killed by Sarge, the leader of the armed uniformed men. Billie escapes with Berto, Chloe, Nick, and Todd, who lead her to Quentin, the de facto leader of the prisoners. Billie swaps kidnapping stories with the others.Rich seems to be the straw boss of the island. He's disappointed with Sarge that Erin is dead. Mao is coming the next day.Delineation of conflicts: The gang of kidnappers/murderers would like to keep the human traffic flowing, since there is a lot of money in organ harvesting. The prisoners would like to escape with their lives. If possible, hurting the efforts of the traffickers would be nice. The gang has weapons, transportation, radios, money, and contacts. The prisoners have their good health, for a while, at least. Billie tries to figure out the connections among them.Resolution: Do the prisoners find a weakness?

I can't believe that inattention to common sense detail. Really awful direction. Very poorly crafted fight scenes. Awful tactics. Fingers inside trigger guards. Movements around corners like sleep walkers. Stupid stupid action. Could this movie really make money?How could people stranded on an island have such good hair? How was it possible that a guy on the island head was perfectly shaved every day for weeks? What is up with those pants on the protagonist ? Are we supposed to believe the pants just got ripped that way? And why was she wearing dog tags? She was never in the military? HIRE ME!I would provide the REAL LIFE direction to make this thing believable.Dear sweet Jesus, please please please, no one ever hire this director or writer again!

The movie seems predictable. The predictable twists were taken out early in the movie to surprise us with the unpredictable twists. This makes the film more enjoyable as the plot unwinds further into the movie. There were some solid acting performances such as Darryl Hannah and Robert Davi.After about half an hour in, we think we're still watching a b movie. Because of this intentional yet enjoyable section of the movie, we think we know how the movie will end. Some of the watchers of this movie may get frustrated because they wanted a different ending or wanted to see more skin.As an adult viewer, I respect when movies are created with far less nudity. The movie is still a great action thriller without showing boobs, and I applaud that. Some men may not like it and rate it low for this reason.The acting where needed from the cast was spot on. We got to know our characters and actually care about them before the killing starts. Each moment where someone we care about dies, it hurts. This brings the emotional element necessary in good thrillers to immerse us into the movie entirely.The climax is later in the movie than most aggressive action thrillers, which makes this movie refreshing and different.There has been a longstanding trend of overly happy every after endings, and while the ending isn't the most sad, its not typical and its a lot more realistic. I'm remaining vague and neutral to prevent spoiling the plot. What I am getting at here is that the ending and the second half of the movie venture far off stereotypical Hollywoood in a lot of the plot twists.A great thing about this movie is we don't know if who we care about are going to die nor live, both antagonists and protagonists die in this movie. Rather than people walking away without a scratch from gun fights, they're getting torn apart.In a lot of movies of this type, we feel distanced from the characters and are distracting by them overacting. However, we feel immersed into the film by the halfway through point whether we enjoy their individual performances or not.A lot of the best movies being released in 2014 and 2015 have action scenes that are so long and repetitive that the action becomes boring. The action in this movie has quite a large variation. When one takes all parts of the movie into consideration, this movie deserves a lot higher than 4.5/10.The action style early into the movie was a lot more simplistic. When Darryl Hannah's back story is told, we believe she can fight as well as she does. That's why being patient with the first 30 minutes of the movie is important to enjoy this film. The action is very smart in the way that it builds up to a thrilling conclusion we didn't expect because of how the movie's pace immerses us by the middle of the movie.I will enjoy re-watching this with friends who share the taste of this movie with me. I may even buy a couple copies as birthday gifts for those who I know will like it. Not everyone will be happy with this movie. Some people will not enjoy this movie until they watch it a second time. This movie will grow on people who give it a chance.Another positive subtle use of special effects was using colors to set the mood of the film, and help immerse us into the movie more as the movie continued.At the end of the day, its an action movie that will never be nominated for Academy awards. Its more tailored to men's enjoyment more than women, but most girlfriends will prefer it over the action movies men usually make them watch.