Another Island Survival Story
Former soldier, Billie Kope (Natalie Burn) had been trying to find her sister who was last seen in Mexico. But after a run in with a group of guys Billie finds herself waking up on an island beach where she discovers a group of people who are in the same boat having found themselves waking up on the beach with no recollection of how they got there. But Billie also discovers that on this mystery island are a group of soldiers who seem to be under orders from someone. The question is what is going on and does this have anything to do with her missing sister?
I have a notepad on my desk full of ideas from things I want to do with this movie site to stuff I want to do with my life. The thing is that I know that most of those ideas are better on paper than what they will be if I ever get around to doing them. In many ways "Awaken", which also goes by the name "Left to Die", is like that because the basic storyline has some nice ideas even if it is just a variation on a formula. But the final movie just doesn't do that much for you with weak characters and poor action.
Now I had better say spoiler alert as what I am going to say kind of spoils the movie although not that much because of course this movie will end up all about Billie fighting to survive. But the spoiler is what is going on on the island and basically we have a crooked businessman using it as a holding ground for people who he has killed when a client needs a human organ for an operation. It is that idea which I like more than anything but as I said the end product is not that special and in the end the movie ends up all about the predictable battle to survive rather than the mystery of the island as well as how Billie's sister fits in to the picture.
As such what we get is some generic action as Billie kicks bad guys butts which includes Vinnie Jones who shows up in a generic bad guy role. That actually leads me to one of the surprising things about "Awaken" as it has a few household names such as Daryl Hannah, Robert Davi, Edward Furlong, David Keith and Jason London. It makes me wonder how much of the movie's budget went on paying these actors rather than on shooting good action.
What this all boils down to is that "Awaken" is the sort of movie which has some nice ideas but the final product ends up a less than thrilling action movie which only manages to retread ground other movies have already gone over.
