Awake not Woke!

This is nothing more than Disney anti-America propaganda trash aimed at teens. I only suffered through half of the first episode and couldn't take any more. This is woke Gen Z nonsense and NOT national treasure. Casting a bunch of Gen Z DEI minority hires and a script that appears to have been written by A.I. using social media as a template this is an embarrassment. The dialog and acting is awful, the soundtrack is tiktok clips of modern pop rap slop. White people are bad or stupid. Pro illegal immigration and rampant feminism everywhere. The dialogue is loaded full of woke social justice comments and anti American sentiment. The lead character is an illegal immigrant trying to get a job with the FBI while using DACA. This is as bad as it gets and no surprise from Disney.

Surprisingly good indie movie. Some great performances and good writing. More of a dramedy than comedy so if your expecting a laugh fest you may be disappointed. The humor is there and it has some funny moments but that's not really the focus. Also some great cinematography of Japan. I think a general knowledge of Japanese culture may make this a bit more enjoyable but definitely not a requirement. The only thing woke is one scene at the beginning. He pretends to marry a young Japanese woman than tells her parents they are moving to Canada so she can get away from her parents and be with her lesbian lover without having to tell them. There is also a lesbian kiss in this scene. It's one short scene and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It feels like a throwaway virtue signal given there is nothing at all in the rest of the movie. Overall great movie and highly recommended if you like lite comedy with your drama. However be aware a large part of this (at least half if not more) is in Japanese with subtitles. If you don't enjoy subtitled movies you may not like this.

I almost didn't watch this due to the trailers looking pretty bad and I expected the worst. The first half hour or so was surprisingly better than expected. The comedy was more subtle and seemed like it was going in the right direction. However as it kept going I started to wonder when the horror would kick in. An hour into it and there is very little snake screen time and all the opportunities for horror elements are played strictly for laughs and comedy. Where the original is a horror monster movie with comedic elements this is a comedy all the way. The final 30 minutes when horror should of taken over completely for a big finale they went the complete opposite direction into full over the top slapstick silly comedy. The original cost 45 million in 1997 versus the same budget for this one. With inflation the original would of cost 91 million today so this had half the budget that one did and it shows. The fx look bad, everything from the snake to the obvious green screen shots are very poorly done. It's not an overly woke movie but the 4 main characters consist of 3 white men and a token black female. There is also the typical badass female character thrown in. Toward the end there is an obvious scene of the 3 white male's cowering in fear getting saved by the black female character. There is also a very weird awkward unfunny scene where a male character attempts to pee on another male character but he has anxiety and can only pee sitting down. It goes on way too long and is completely random and out of place. It's in the middle of what should be an action sequence and screeches everything to a halt for a long man peeing on another man joke.

Not at all what I was expecting. The first 40 minutes or so had a decent if improbable start but than it sort of stopped and went off into corny rom-com territory. Another true story movie that is basically all fake and made up. The basic character of Gary and his fake hit man is true but pretty much everything else is b.s. including the love story that is central to the entire movie as well as the 'surprise' ending. The acting is ok and there are some humorous scenes but I just didn't find it all that funny. It also seemed to be a bit long at 2hrs for the story it was telling. I finished it and it isn't terrible just could of been better. The only woke is the usual DEI overrepresentation and the love interest just had to be Spanish so we can get that mixed race box checked. I feel like this is another 2.5 star movie but I think it's decent enough to bump up to 3 stars.