Blue Lagoon: The Awakening

**Blue Lagoon: The Awakening** is a 2012 American television romantic drama film directed by Mikael Salomon and Jake Newsome which aired on June 16, 2012 on the Lifetime network.

It is based on the 1908 novel, "The Blue Lagoon" and its previous film adaptations.

## Plot

The film follows Emma Robinson & Dean McMullen, two high school students who find themselves stranded on an island during a school field trip and fall in with each other while relying on each other to survive.

## Cast

* Indiana Evans as Emmaline "Emma" Robinson
* Brenton Thwaites as Dean McMullen
* Denise Richards as Barbara Robinson
* Frank John Hughes as Phil Robinson
* Carrie Wampler as Stacey Robinson
* Patrick St. Esprit as Jack McMullen
* Alix Elizabeth Gitter as Lizzie
* Hayley Kiyoko as Helen
* Aimee Carrero as Jude
* Annie Tedesco as Ms. Collier
* Christopher Atkins as Mr. Christiansen

## Production

"Blue Lagoon: The Awakening" had been in development since 2004, with Heather Rutman and Matt Heller as writers.

Production began in Los Angeles, California in February of 2012 with Eric Bross as director and Denis Lenoir as director of photography.

When filming moved to the island of Maui in Hawaii, they were replaced by director Mikael Salomon and director of photography Roy H. Wagner.

Brenton Thwaites recounted that he had never heard of the "Blue Lagoon" films before. Upon being cast in the film, he watched the previous two films for research, though he admitted that he could not bring himself to watch "Return to the Blue Lagoon" in its entirety.

During filming of the scenes in the lagoon, BRenton Thwaites and Indiana Evans were so cold that they could not talk properly, necessitating that automated dialogue replacement be applied to these scenes.

## Critical Reception

"Blue Lagoon: The Awakening" received more mixed reviews than the previous two films in the franchise, and was often compared favorably to the critically reviled 1980 film.

On Metacritic, it has an approval rating of 51 out of 100 based on reviews from 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Linda Stasi commented in the New York Post: *"Unlike the original where nudie scenes were followed by fornicating turtles (kill me!), here their 'awakening' is tastefully done with nothing much showing except their emotions."* She assessed the film overall as being silly, but enjoyable.

Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette cited the lack of physical explicitness in the sex scenes as a major weak point of the film and that the ending was *"particularly weak and nonsensical."*

Mike Hale of The New York Times thought the film was a guilty pleasure, and commented: *"The new film lacks the glowing cinematography of Néstor Almendros, who was nominated for an Oscar for The Blue Lagoon. But under the direction of Mikael Salomon and Jake Newsome, The Awakening offers occasional honest moments of humor and adolescent angst: Ms. [Indiana] Evans and Mr. [Brenton] Thwaites are in their early 20s and better actors than Ms. [Brooke] Shields and Mr. [Christopher] Atkins were in their teens."*

Will Harris of The A.V. Club was highly critical of the film, saying it failed to meet even his low expectations, writing: *"When a film manages to fail to live up to the low bar set for Blue Lagoon movies and Lifetime movies, you know you've got something really, really awful on your hands.'*