AMANDA WILSON, Pulse Movie Reviewer

Many movies are good. Others are not so good. Some are so bad, they're good. "Awake" is none of these. Marketed as a drama/thriller, it is not sexy, scary, suspenseful, or smart. It's just plain bad.

The premise may pique one's interest temporarily. Clay Beresford (Hayden Christensen), a young real-estate mogul in New York, is in need of a heart transplant. On the operating table, Clay is given general anesthesia but he fails to go completely under, instead experiencing "anesthesia awareness," in which the patient is aware of his surroundings and can feel the pain of surgery but is paralyzed and unable to communicate his distress.

Clay experiences extreme pain and anxiety as the operation gets underway, but the panic doesn't truly set in until he overhears the surgeons plotting to kill him on the table. Then it is a seemingly doomed race to the finish as Clay, stepping out of his body, futilely attempts to alert his girlfriend, Sam (Jessica Alba), of the situation.

Somehow, even amongst all of this adrenaline, "Awake" still manages to have no pulse. The plot twists are stale, predictable and cheap. The movie attempts to come full circle with its opening and closing scenes, when really it never went anywhere at all. The script is absolutely flat, and the acting is featureless as well.

Graphic shots of the transplant surgery are in ample supply for blood-and-guts junkies, replacing the usual gore of most R-rated thrillers. Visuals of Clay's open chest cavity are a plot necessity, but the operating room scenes fail to stimulate any suspense - instead evoking only a collective "ewww." The doctors are more cartoonish than malicious in their evil under-the-knife endeavors, with little conviction behind their limp execution of lines.

As the young hotshot with a heart of gold, Clay is the one whom the audience is supposed to root for. Christensen's acting, however, offers little to cheer about. Alba adds nothing in the way of acting, either, and is inexplicably under-used for her one film-worthy quality: sex appeal. Terrence Howard appears as the main surgeon, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.

And anywhere else would be great compared to this movie. A snooze of a surgical thriller, "Awake" should be classified as dead on arrival.

{M3'Awake'

Starring:{M3 Hayden Christensen, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard, Lena Olin

{M3Director: {M3Joby Harold

{M3Run time: {M31 hour, 24 minutes

{M3Rated:{M3 R, for language, an intense disturbing situation, and brief drug use

{M3Now playing at:{M3 College Square, Crossroads

0 out of 5 stars