Supposedly, according to the publicity surrounding the new movie "Awake," one in 700 people wake up during surgery in the United States every year. The real risk here is that this might also be the number of people who stay awake during the film.

"Awake" is an alleged psychological thriller

In the movie, the patient is played by Hayden Christensen, the Vancouver, British Columbia-born actor who lucked out and landed in a couple of "Star Wars" pictures. I write "lucked out" because in most of his movies the bland Christensen is generally as pretty or even prettier than his female costars, but usually not as talented. He reminds me of a blond cloud floating through films.

There was no advance screening of "Awake" for movie critics, which is always a bad sign, and compels reviewers--this one, to be specific--to catch the first showing on opening day.

Christensen plays Clayton Beresford Jr., a very successful and impossibly young stock investor from a wealthy family. Of course, you know he's rich because of his name, a cartoonesque moniker straight out of Richie Rich comic books. He has a relationship with Samantha (Jessica Alba), who is his mother's personal assistant, but the trysting is a secret. Shhh. The mother, played by Lena Olin, who is the best thing in the film, is one of those nasty control freaks without whom everybody would live happily ever after. Of course, fans of soap operas will be able to follow this meandering plot with ease.

Facing heart transplant surgery--the bad ticker probably caused by the stress of hiding his girlfriend --Clayton prepares himself for the operation. The doctor is a friend of his, so things seem promising. Ooops. As the surgery goes on, Clayton wakes up and, although he can't physically move, his mind gets active and he thinks he hears a murder plot in which he is the victim. Ouch.

The operation sequence is not for the squeamish --let's leave it at that. The movie sort of loses focus and shifts from medical mystery to strange domestic drama, and I think I've afforded you enough clues to figure out the thing. Or have I? Is the murder plot actually real or a figment of Clayton's overactive imagination? Is Christensen really Barbara Stanwyck in "Sorry, Wrong Number"? Is it rug-pulling time or scratch-your-head time? And why is Alba unable to act with any emotion? Or conviction? Is she a vixen or just va-va-voom eye candy? And what about Terrence Howard's physician? Actually, what about Howard's career? He's much too talented to be serving up the trite dialogue he's forced to deliver.

Joby Harold, a first-time director and also a first-time author of the silly screenplay, is an Englishman who came to the United States to attend UCLA film school, from which he actually graduated. Considering the lack of common sense, structural integrity and believable dialogue in "Awake," this might say something about the quality of education at UCLA. The idea for the movie had been bouncing around Harold's head for some time. Way back in the summer of 2005, he was quoted in "Filmmaker" magazine as saying, "I had a kidney stone and I was in extreme amounts of pain. The morphine wasn't helping, so in my mind I looked for a happy place to hang out until the pain went away."

Shame on you for laughing. Come on, the guy was in pain. Anyway, this "happy place" was writing the screenplay for "Awake." This proves the adage that one person's happiness is another person's bad movie. Unfortunately, despite a lot of fits and starts and casting changes--how about the original idea of Jared Leto and Kate Bosworth starring it in--the film got made. It's not very good, not very original, and definitely not a positive advertisement for either surgery or beginning screenwriting.

The mist comes at you on little cat feet. Oh wait, that's the fog that comes at you on little cat feet.

Oh well, with apologies to Carl Sandburg, but none to Stephen King, I bring you details about "The Mist," which is probably a good story, but transferred to film it's nothing more than a tribute to Indiglo watches. Especially mine.

Here we are again amid the bickering and cowering townspeople, this time stuck in a Maine supermarket as mysterious goings-on swirl outside its doors. What is it this time? Lethal cars? Rabid dogs? Carrie White back for another prom dance? No, just some sort of madcap mist threatening the good folks who demand answers so they can get back to their backyard clambakes. Speaking of clambakes, the laughable creepy-crawly critters unleashed in the middle of the mist might make good substitutes if the lobster catch is low. They look fake enough to be your neighbor's Halloween decorations.

The cast includes Marcia Gay Harden, who is the real star of the show as a loopy village kook, Thomas Jane, whose character acts as if rocks are smarter than he is, and Andrew Braugher, as the doubter among them. Also in tow are two always-very-good Buffalo boys. William Sadler and Jeffrey DeMunn deserve an easy paycheck, and they earned theirs working in this film. And I always enjoy hearing Frances Sternhagen's wonderful speaking voice. Directed and written by the always long-winded Frank Darabont, from King's original novella, "The Mist" might be worth seeing for some of you because of its surprise twist of an ending, although it comes so far out of left field that it seems to be from another movie.

One big problem with the film is that Darabont, who captured lightning in a bottle with his "The Shawshank Redemption" but bored me with "The Green Mile"--I'm still waiting for it to end--doesn't seem to know when enough's enough. This third King adaptation of his clocks in at 127 minutes --and believe me, it feels it. Darabont seems too much in love with his bloated material to know when to cut. There's only so much you can do with people trapped in a building with things zooming at the window glass out of a mist. It all plays out like the classic restaurant-gas station scenes in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." In fact, it's uncomfortably close in tone and spirit and even character reactions to that sequence. But I will give some points to the picture's cinematography by Ronn Schmidt.

I guess there's something to be said for giving people their money's worth, but I'd rather Darabont had given people what they really deserve--a better movie.