Awake

Really good watch, could watch again, and can recommend. This is no "Day 5" (A Rooster Teeth series where people who fall asleep never wake again). This is more like a twisted opposite of that, but still interesting. Watching characters slowly go insane has a certain level of appeal to it when it comes to stories. It's an onboard clock to how far the story can be pushed. The cast does a great job of leaning into the characters and their situations, the story itself is decent, but does lean quite a bit on the concept alone. The movie distracts from it's main plot from being about a mom and her two kids, this creates dependencies that wouldn't usually exist in apocalyptic survivor groups. It allows for some predictability as well as limiting in what is sensible for the characters to do. The movie compensates well enough and the bigger problem, to me is the "special child" trope it uses. Definitely worth a watch, and refreshing to see a somewhat innovative idea come along.

Disaster movies are probably the closest type of film to being a "guilty pleasure" of mine. I strongly defend that every single genre has phenomenal and awful movies, all of which should be seen by audiences. Often, people ignore "bad films" as if they're not necessary, but without them, cinephiles wouldn't be able to truly appreciate when a gem comes around. Awake is neither, but it does feature an original idea that could have been much better explored. Gina Rodriguez (Kajillionaire) is quite good as the worrying mother, but performances can only carry the movie until a certain point. Joseph Raso and Mark Raso's screenplay isn't able to develop a unique "end-of-the-world" concept in a surprising, captivating manner, following the generic plot points and predictable outcomes. Despite the short runtime, it still holds some pacing issues that unnecessarily drag the film. As with every other flick of this genre, questionable actions and events must be blindly accepted by the audience to avoid nitpicking logical issues. It's still somewhat entertaining due to the genre itself, but it all feels underwhelming compared to the genuinely interesting premise. Rating: C-