First of all, this is different experience for the Egyptian cinema at the last 10 years. Since 1997, the traditional comic, close to farce, movies ruled, with no chance for any other flavors to be produced.
(Ahmed Mikky), who graduated from the Egyptian high cinema institute, made a short film named (El Hasa El Sabaa) or (The Seventh Sense). It was a comic fantasy that gained a lot of prizes at cinematic festivals all over the world. In 2005, he wanted to remake his short film as a commercial movie to be his first feature film. He directed it, co-wrote the script, and made some cameos at it too only by his vocal performance (the radio announcer for example). But the problem is that, aside from a lovely idea, he wanted to make a lot of things in the same time, and through just one movie. So, unfortunately, that very lovely idea nearly sunk under so many issues, characters, and events.
There was the desire to make nice adventure of a young man (Yahia), played by (Ahmed El Feshawy), who must have faith in himself away from any magic but his human will, however you'd find in addition to that: a satire about lying in the society through so many different forms, the inferiority of the Egyptian media against the American one, the loss of the Egyptian idol when the American pop idols took over, moreover a parody of Egyptian music videos! Actually all of this lasts for a long time on the screen. Not to mention how it took them the whole first 40 minutes just to present the characters before getting into the point! Which exhausted the original funny idea to the extent that you might feel strong sense of boardroom during the 2 hours of the movie which should've been shorter than that.
You'd find also: more than one scene for (Yahia) and (Mona) just to assure that they're in love or that he can hear her thinking, more than one scene to mock at the Arabic TV news, more than one scene for (Yahia) while he was studying the Chinese language; noticing that, at one point, the lead hears the birds thoughts by their language, so why to bothering yourself learning Chinese?!, a long sequence about the defeat of the Tatars when they tried to occupy Egypt and the story of (Kootoz) the hero who ended them.. Just to make (Yahia) believe in himself, another long sequence near the end, more than 5 minutes long, to show how (Yahia) is training to face his competitor and training his student as well (like it's Rocky 1 and 5 in the same time!), superfluous character; like the athletic champion and the action movies' star, played by the famous football player (Khaled El Ghandour) only to utilize his popularity, let alone a melodramatic excuse to make (Yahia) come back to his friend (the death of the friend's mother), etc. to the end of elongation and fabrication that did nothing but strengthening the boardroom, and lessening the persuasion.
True that the editing excelled at being funny, kept an inner fast pace, and tried to save the light idea as much as it could, but the final result was that heavy since they didn't want to reduce anything they filmed.
On the other hand, the soundtrack was richly creative. (Ahmed El Feshawy) made a fine job as (Yahia), being witty as well as talented. Yes, singer (Dalia El Cordy) wasn't much of an actress, but she was cute as (Mona), and her performance wasn't that bad, only no chemistry between her and (El Feshawi). Director of photography (Mazen El Motagawel) was so smart along the way; remember the magician's scenes for example. He corroborated the novelty of the atmosphere with the brilliance and the esprit of (Ahmed Mikky) as a director.
(Mikky) here proves that he can make a live cartoon action with great sincerity for cartoon movies, or comic strips. Clearly he was moved by the American movies, yet in a good way, and in the same time he has special sense of humor, intelligent imagination, plus a lot in his mind to say and to criticize more than making fantastic or comic movies only. But maybe at his first movie, he wanted to assure all of that together. So despite very amusing moments, and big ambitions, it wasn't completely a fair one to judge him rightly.
All in all, (The Seventh Sense) has too much ado already, to show the talents of all the new crew, and present cinematic fun and important message. Although it's lovely and interesting ado.. But still too much!
(Ahmed Mikky), who graduated from the Egyptian high cinema institute, made a short film named (El Hasa El Sabaa) or (The Seventh Sense). It was a comic fantasy that gained a lot of prizes at cinematic festivals all over the world. In 2005, he wanted to remake his short film as a commercial movie to be his first feature film. He directed it, co-wrote the script, and made some cameos at it too only by his vocal performance (the radio announcer for example). But the problem is that, aside from a lovely idea, he wanted to make a lot of things in the same time, and through just one movie. So, unfortunately, that very lovely idea nearly sunk under so many issues, characters, and events.
There was the desire to make nice adventure of a young man (Yahia), played by (Ahmed El Feshawy), who must have faith in himself away from any magic but his human will, however you'd find in addition to that: a satire about lying in the society through so many different forms, the inferiority of the Egyptian media against the American one, the loss of the Egyptian idol when the American pop idols took over, moreover a parody of Egyptian music videos! Actually all of this lasts for a long time on the screen. Not to mention how it took them the whole first 40 minutes just to present the characters before getting into the point! Which exhausted the original funny idea to the extent that you might feel strong sense of boardroom during the 2 hours of the movie which should've been shorter than that.
You'd find also: more than one scene for (Yahia) and (Mona) just to assure that they're in love or that he can hear her thinking, more than one scene to mock at the Arabic TV news, more than one scene for (Yahia) while he was studying the Chinese language; noticing that, at one point, the lead hears the birds thoughts by their language, so why to bothering yourself learning Chinese?!, a long sequence about the defeat of the Tatars when they tried to occupy Egypt and the story of (Kootoz) the hero who ended them.. Just to make (Yahia) believe in himself, another long sequence near the end, more than 5 minutes long, to show how (Yahia) is training to face his competitor and training his student as well (like it's Rocky 1 and 5 in the same time!), superfluous character; like the athletic champion and the action movies' star, played by the famous football player (Khaled El Ghandour) only to utilize his popularity, let alone a melodramatic excuse to make (Yahia) come back to his friend (the death of the friend's mother), etc. to the end of elongation and fabrication that did nothing but strengthening the boardroom, and lessening the persuasion.
True that the editing excelled at being funny, kept an inner fast pace, and tried to save the light idea as much as it could, but the final result was that heavy since they didn't want to reduce anything they filmed.
On the other hand, the soundtrack was richly creative. (Ahmed El Feshawy) made a fine job as (Yahia), being witty as well as talented. Yes, singer (Dalia El Cordy) wasn't much of an actress, but she was cute as (Mona), and her performance wasn't that bad, only no chemistry between her and (El Feshawi). Director of photography (Mazen El Motagawel) was so smart along the way; remember the magician's scenes for example. He corroborated the novelty of the atmosphere with the brilliance and the esprit of (Ahmed Mikky) as a director.
(Mikky) here proves that he can make a live cartoon action with great sincerity for cartoon movies, or comic strips. Clearly he was moved by the American movies, yet in a good way, and in the same time he has special sense of humor, intelligent imagination, plus a lot in his mind to say and to criticize more than making fantastic or comic movies only. But maybe at his first movie, he wanted to assure all of that together. So despite very amusing moments, and big ambitions, it wasn't completely a fair one to judge him rightly.
All in all, (The Seventh Sense) has too much ado already, to show the talents of all the new crew, and present cinematic fun and important message. Although it's lovely and interesting ado.. But still too much!