Summary
A convoluted mismatch of sci-fi themes and concepts that fails to come together. It will remind you of many iconic films, and you’d be better off watching those instead.
If you’ve ever wondered how a mash-up between The Terminator, The Matrix, The X-Men, and Inception would look like, Prime Video’s Spanish sci-fi thriller Awareness is your mismatched answer.
Directed by Daniel Benmayor, the film premiered at the 2023 Málaga Film Festival before making its way to the streamer. Featuring stylish action sequences, a convoluted plot, and an irritating protagonist, Awareness follows a young man with superhuman abilities on a quest to understand who he is.
Awareness review and plot summary
Teenager Ian (Carlos Scholz) and his father, Vicente (Pedro Alonso), live away from society on a rusty old boat. They use Ian’s supernatural ability to create illusions to commit petty theft so they can eat and ensure Vicente never runs out of cheap liquor.
When one such robbery goes wrong, the father-son duo become targets of the mysterious Agency and a Terminator-type killer (Óscar Jaenada), who shares Ian’s skills. The film itself includes a comparison to James Cameron’s iconic sci-fi franchise, when one character utters the famous line, “Come with me if you want to live.”
From here on out, things get even more confusing. At the Agency’s helm, there’s Adriana (Lela Loren), who explains she needs Ian’s help to stop the Awareness, a group of so-called Receptives that control all the planet’s governments.
But then Adriana says there’s only one Receptive left (the guy played by Jaenada). When the super-killer himself talks, he states that his kind was created during the Cold War, and most of them got culled by the Agency soon after. So it’s unclear who exactly is running the world as Jaenada’s character is a one-man show.
There are layers upon layers upon layers of conspiracy introduced during the film’s runtime, but Awareness fails to explain any of it. We hear about The Mule, the third power, and the formula. Yet the movie leaves these concepts as ambiguous when the credits roll as when characters first utter the words between Matrix-style fight scenes.
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There’s also a surprising amount of melodrama peppered in. Specifically, Ian finds out that his father isn’t his father, and it’s unclear who his mother is, but he is desperate to find her.
A frustratingly convoluted plot
It doesn’t help that Ian is quite the annoying protagonist. While Scholz does a decent enough job with the character, Ian never feels like a hero worth rooting for. He’s impulsive, acts against his best interests, and claims to want answers while refusing to listen when other characters try offering some semblance of explanations.
Despite having an intriguing premise, Awareness is a frustrating and convoluted mess of a thriller. It looks good and the action shots are entertaining, but the narrative lets it down.
It’s hard to believe Daniel Benmayor himself knew what the crux of the plot was while writing it. Awareness is ultimately confusing and tries too hard to be something it’s not.
What did you think of Awareness? Comment below.
