It is appropriate to display a picture of Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in any discussion regarding his upcoming film AWAKE, since Hayden apparently resumes the weird, deliberate line readings that doomed his portrayal of the Star Wars villain.

A new trailer has surfaced for Christensen’s film AWAKE, in which he plays a young man who owns half of San Francisco (uh, yeah …) and is contentedly married to Jessica Alba (which would be easy if he was straight) who finds himself in a murder plot.

Check it out:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW6HJN8F430[/youtube]

Chills went down my spine when Hayden mechanically intoned, “We are engaged to be married” as if Johnny Five had his hand up Hayden’s ass in order to work his mouth, Muppet-style. I had awful flashbacks to the balcony scene of REVENGE OF THE SITH, or worse, the putrid ATTACK OF THE CLONES fireplace scene.

Can Hayden actually act? Regardless of the breathless devotion found in his bevy of female/gay admirers, the obvious answer is, sadly, no. Even though he is now in his mid-twenties, Christensen still affects every line with that slightly stiff, glowering self-importance found in most insecure 14 year old boys. The guy couldn’t read Dr. Seuss without sounding like an emotionless version of WOPR from WARGAMES.

In addition to Christensen’s performance flaws, the trailer reveals several other disturbing questions about the film. For instance, wasn’t this premise used in a Stephen King project a few years ago? Isn’t that bathtub scene simply a rehash of the exact same scene in Darren Aronofsky’s THE FOUNTAIN? And why does Jessica Alba’s acting arsenal consist entirely of a flirty smile and an open-mouthed expression of shock?

The grabby central premise of the film will guarantee a slobbering teen-aged audience eager to fill the body-torture void between SAW films. But I, for one, smell trouble for this flick.