Francesco

> **You'll win but you'll not convince.** Always being interested in this Amenabar crossover to the historic movies like this one who aims straight at expanding the first period of the Spanish Civil War through the eyes of de Unamuno. I recognise to Amenabar a great historical rigorous method of reconstruction and, especially, a balance in the narrative scheme that could've been easily associated with one or the other part if shot and shown in a different manner.

Everything with neon lights and a eastern asian setting for me is always something worth watching, especially if it takes place in a night environment that is barely known for us westerners but this thing always comes together with a point in the movie where you ask yourself if you're truly enjoying it or no. And Millenium Mambo made myself ask this question because in some parts it's very difficult to understand what's going on or what's happening, not for how the shot is taken but for how the script is written. My first time with You Hsiao-hsien ([The Assassin](https://boxd.it/2hrCgT)) was very similar to this for how he developed the story, but I guess it's my own problem, and as that time, I cannot but appreciate how the visuals are developed.

Well, there could be a lot to say about the whole moral system behind this, a literal stratocracy where only the war and violence makes you a proper citizen and where the military has a saying in every single thing that govern the world and, in this case the galaxy. With a direction given to another director, this could've easily been the 90s Green Berets but, Verhoeven, given his past as a director, took this to a level where the main core of the novel from which this movie's taken is softened a bit and it becomes basically a big buddy movie that includes women too. The whole visual concept and the ideas behind it are cool, especially with those adv from the Military, nice use of internet in a movie.

If the first one was too rushed, this one's even way too much, it has the same vibes of **['somehow Palpatine returned'](https://youtu.be/bz6PgdhhkUM?is=DUKdkcj9mrR_kRlq)** for how it treats some characters, and the whole story between Reed and Sue it's wayyy too extreme, like it's a teen goofy movie. I wish there was a third installment tho...