STABFORD DEATHRAGE’S NETFLIX NASTIES: Awaken (2015)

Awaken 2015 FILM

A woman stumbles upon a dangerous game of organ harvesting while stranded on a tropical island in this tedious adventure film.

A woman wearing high heeled boots and purposefully torn designer jeans finds she’s washed ashore on an island as if she’s in a Chris Isaak video. Suddenly, she finds a banana, then a woman in a torn denim dress runs past her. Men wearing camouflage and nets for hats are chasing this woman, and it’s difficult for her to elude them due to her also not-especially-jungle-appropriate high heeled shoes.

Naturally, she falls down and humorously breaks every bone in her body except her neck, and Vinnie Jones mercifully finishes the job, and the idea of having my neck broken to stop watching this film sounds better and better all the time. She finds several uninteresting minor characters are stranded on the island as well, and they all recount how they came to be stranded on the island over a dinner of durian. Then the lead character fights three guys in a flashback. Ed Furlong makes a creepy pass at her, but don’t worry, his character seems to just disappear later. Then the womenfolk weave baskets for exotic fruit.

The lead character, her future love interest, a former soldier, and a disposable Asian guy decide to journey by raft to a neighboring unrealistically computer-generated island. Their pitiful raft fashioned from garbage is attacked by a shark, and when the surviving three arrive on the island, Vinnie Jones tazes them. Michael Pare gets stabbed, and then it’s time for another basket of fruit. The woman with the fruit basket gets her ear chopped off although the villains were warned not to, and then palm fronds are used to prevent shock. Someone asks why the villains are going to all the trouble to keep them on a completely different island, and no one attempts to answer that question. Robert Davi makes a covert phone call from his secluded palm frond hut in the jungle, and I almost expected him to use a coconut transmitter a la Gilligan’s Island.

Thankfully, Daryl Hannah shows up in a stylish pantsuit and enormous sunglasses, and just in the nick of time. She’s awful and terrific and calls someone a ferret. She then complains that a potential organ donor doesn’t have any chi and nearly devastates everyone with her withering glare. It’s the highlight of the film, but don’t worry, since she’s simultaneously a monstrously amoral villain selecting potential organ donors like they’re eyewear from a mall kiosk and a nurturing, doting parent, she almost resembles a three-dimensional character, therefore her appearance is very brief.

Two soldiers are killed by a boulder swinging from a vine, and Daryl Hannah worriedly plays with a stuffed monkey, and only one of those things is slightly terrifying. During a flashback, the lead character doesn’t recognize her own sister although she’s standing three feet away from her during an impromptu underworld job interview.

It’s revealed that the island is an unconvincingly computer-generated resort for organ harvesting, and there’s a brief shot of eyeballs floating in Tupperware. Meanwhile, the camera is briefly visible in the reflection of the glass cabinet containing murky jars of organs. After some extended battle scenes, Daryl Hannah just sort of wanders away, which is probably for the best. After several minutes of gunfire resulting in the deaths of nearly the entire cast, the film finally ends with an unconvincing beach funeral. Seriously, who dug all those graves and strategically placed them unrealistically close to the water? I’m certain it wasn’t Daryl Hannah. She would’ve gotten sand on her pantsuit.

Awaken is a star-studded crapstravaganza, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It bores in spite of numerous, lengthy action sequences, and Daryl Hannah is the only interesting character. If you absolutely insist on watching Awaken, utilize the fast-forward button.

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