by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
In the Spanish sci-fi thriller, Awareness, teenage Ian Niño (Enzo Calleja) has the power of illusion on other people’s minds. He and his father, Vicente (Pedro Alonso), use his power for minor crimes. However, Ian believes using his abilities is for something much bigger, despite his father’s objections. As Ian attempts to find out more about his past, he draws attention from an agency led by a woman named Adriana (Lela Loren) and a strange man with similar powers, played by Óscar Jaenada. With the help of a mysterious woman, played by María Mercado, Ian attempts to uncover the truth about his past, his parents, and the extent of his powers.
The first thing that stirred me about this premise is Ian’s ability. Aside from one episode of Stranger Things, I don’t think I’ve seen a character with the power to fool others into thinking they are seeing things that aren’t there, or not seeing something that is. It opens up many possibilities for exciting visuals and potentially clever sequences. Sadly, most of the story focuses on exploiting Ian’s powers, and why he has them; the powers themselves are more of an afterthought. The only time the powers become a more critical part of the story is when more are introduced, which always seems like a bit of a cheat in stories like this — leading us to believe they’ve been working on getting better at using this single power for years, and then suddenly telling them there’s this other thing they can do, and somehow they can do it right away. This new power is an exciting way to get vital exposition disclosed, because it involves seeing a person’s memories. It is like a flashback scene without actually being one. However, it’s annoying that the show verbalizes what we had seen after this scene like the audience might not have understood it.
Much of this story’s most exciting use of powers comes from Jaenada’s character, the Preceptor. He forms elaborate and longterm illusions with a more extensive range that makes you think about the possibilities for different visuals, and ideas for action sequences. But this more stimulating way of using the powers is only ever seen from Jaenada; Ian’s use of them remains relatively primitive for the entire story. The closest thing to any arc he has with using powers is, once again, when introducing new powers.
The ability to deceive what people can see also has the potential to form some exciting action sequences, but ultimately, this doesn’t happen, and the action in Awareness is somewhat dull. It consists almost entirely of hand-to-hand combat, which is fine, but there is so much of it. It’s all the same overly choreographed one-to-one blocking of punches and kicks. There are about four or five sequences with this kind of fighting, and it feels highly repetitive, not helped by the fact that the stunt work looks pretty fake, and that the way director Daniel Benmayor shoots them is uninspired.
There is a clear inspiration from other popular sci-fi thrillers such as Inception. Characters can manipulate reality, see into a person’s past, and convince them to do something different, similar to what is in the Christopher Nolan movie. The problem is nothing original or unexpected happens due to any of this. Ian’s powers are used for him to escape somewhere, or to find something out, but it’s the sort of sequence seen in other action thrillers where the character doesn’t have powers. It’s a generic action story first, and one about a kid with powers second. We never really find out if Ian is even happy with his powers, or what he wants to do with them. He spends the entire story running away from one group of people, following another, and he never seems to be thinking about what he wants to do. As a result, Ian comes across as rather bland, and maybe even a little foolish. By the end, I had no idea what he wanted, or if he understood his powers completely.
With the core element of this story being deception, both in the form of the powers the main character has, and with the structure of the narrative being about twists and manipulation by an organization, you might think the real aim of the main character would be to find out who to have confidence in, and what he should do with his powers. But even by the end, it’s unclear who he should trust, or why he has chosen to trust the people he is with. A decent twist near the end seems to hit home that Ian shouldn’t believe a specific character. But Ian’s conclusion regarding the reveal of this twist confused me. He decides he should trust the group that didn’t trick him, as opposed to what seems the more logical conclusion of just not trusting anyone. While it is pretty effective, I also thought the twist might have worked better with an element of ambiguity, where it’s entirely unclear what or who was real. Still, how it’s resolved leaves nothing open to interpretation and leaves me unsatisfied. This twist also raises more questions about the range of possibilities with the powers that both Ian and the Preceptor possess, which made me want to know more about how these powers work.
I had a lot of questions about what was going on in specific scenes and what certain characters might know or be able to see. But they were questions lacking in any clear answers by the end. The more significant questions during the narrative revolve around who Ian’s parents are, what happened to them, and how he got his powers, none of which seemed as important to me as what the rules were with these powers.
I should briefly mention the cast of on-screen Spanish- and English-speaking voice actors who dubbed the version I saw. They all do a decent job. Jaenada is a particular standout. While there is never any substitute for watching the original Spanish version with subtitles, the English dubbing here is excellent, and I never once felt distracted by it.
Overall, Awareness had a lot of exciting ideas with the introduction of quite an original ability, and it hints at some fascinating concepts for this ability. However, the lack of a clear motivation for the main character, or any definitive explanation of how their powers worked, left me frustrated at specific points, and disinterested in others. It appears to want to make you think the plot is taking a lot of twists by suggesting one person is the bad guy, and then subverting that idea with new information, but it just left me thinking I shouldn’t care. For a movie where the main character can make people perceive anything they want, the visuals are pretty bland, and the action is beyond tedious. After watching this, I wish someone would do a mind trick to make me think I hadn’t seen it.
Rating: Didn’t Like It
Awareness is currently streaming on Prime Video
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