My Review of "Awake"

Awake is one of Netflix's latest 2021 movie releases. I gained some interest from reading outline of what the movie was about. Unfortunately, there are a lot of inconsistencies throughout the movie that kind of makes the movie fall flat for me. It's too bad because they did have a very interesting concept but if you can't stick to your own rules then things get kind of muddy for me. I know how difficult it is to write sci-fi movies. At least we got a new sci-fi movie this year.

The movie starts off with our main protagonist, Jill, working at some sort medical facility. It's not really clear what she does there but we get introduced to her while she's stealing expired pills. She later on sells these pills to some drug peddlers to make some extra cash. We're basically learning that she's down on her luck. She's doing this to make a little extra cash to take her kids out.

Her two kids, Matilda and Noah, live with their grandmother. Their grandmother has sole custody of the children and their father looks to have passed away. We later find out more and more about the details of Jill's past along with why the children live with their grandmother instead of her.

While Jill takes her kids out there seems to be some catastrophe that happens. All things with microchips stopped working so there's accidents everywhere. To make matters worse no one in the world can sleep anymore. This was a curious decision to put two clauses in the movie. It makes it much more difficult for the writers to keep up with what they can and can't do at this point. So The two clauses are the fact that everyone is becoming sleep deprived and electronics are no longer working.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depends on how you see it), Jill's daughter Matilda still has the ability to sleep. This causes an uproar because Matilda could be the key to sleeping. The problem is that everyone has their own method of using Matilda to fix their sleeping problems. Some believe in sacrificing her and some believe in studying her even more.

Since no one is sleeping it's only a matter of time before the lack of sleep starts getting to everyone. It's said that everyone will eventually die from lack of sleep our 3 family members must figure out what to do before Matilda would be left to fend for herself.

An interesting concept that could have went in so many different directions. I think some of the more interesting potential storylines would have been a few years in the future rather than keeping it all set in the same timeline. Of course the way they set it up in this movie allowed for some fun action scenes.

My problem with the movie was that they didn't quite follow their own 2 simple rules. We would have fights and people would be knocked out yet they already mentioned many times that people can't go unconscious anymore. Scenes didn't quite make sense when everyone in the world knew about this rule and they're still trying to wake people up that they think are unconscious.

Some of that could be debated because of the fact they have less critical thinking from lack of sleep. The fight scenes could have played on the fact that people didn't go unconscious and started screaming like crazy because they have to bare the burden of their pain.

The second rule that I honestly don't think they even needed in the movie was the fact that electronics don't work anymore. I honestly don't know why they had to add this provision to the movie because it overcomplicates everything and makes for a lot of inconsistencies in the movie.

They would take liberties to bend their no electricity rules, for example cars could be used if they're old cars without computers. All computers are doing is analyzing on and off switches so batteries were also an issue of contention. Maybe I'll allow it.

However, they had a lot of areas with lights on at night. What could possibly be powering these lights? Maybe a generator of some sort? I'm not totally sure what generator they were using to keep those lights on because I could have swore electricity wasn't working. They could have easily used old school lamps with fire but that might have been too dangerous on set. I'm not sure, but then they also allowed the cars to turn on their lights.

It didn't make sense to me at all. I mean they even allowed to use defibrillators. There's no way there are no microchips and electricity when using a defibrillator. This device is also crucial to the whole story. How could they edit this movie script without noticing that the defibrillator goes against one of the basic rules of their movie world?

In sci-fi movies I generally give them a few passes in logic because I recognize how difficult it is to create a whole new world. It's tough to keep in line with all of those rules but this movie only had 2 simple rules and they violated these rules throughout the movie as if the rules were an afterthought. Why did no one even question some of the scenes that were taking place? It doesn't makes sense. It's sort of like seeing that coffee cup in the scene from Game of Thrones but in your face and not hidden.

Overall, I thought the story had a very good concept but the lack of effort in keeping with the 2 simplistic rules was ridiculous. Even I had to question their logic when they wrote the movie. I really wished that this movie could overcome these setbacks but they were too glaring that it was a constant distraction. They did have fun with some aspects with Matilda being the only person who was able to think rationally but they didn't take full advantage of this. I have to give this movie a 4.5 out of 10. It's kind of watchable but I would tell people to pass.