Ali Baba ve 7 Cüceler

Hello everybody! As a Turkish movie watcher and an occasional IMDb.com reviewer, I feel obligated to write my review for this one. First of all, Cem Yilmaz is a well-known stand-up comedian in Turkey. He is the director and the leading actor in this film. As the screening began only a few days ago, I am least affected by commentaries. Well, the beginning of the movie was awesome, the jokes come one after another. I think Cem Yilmaz has clearly resolved what Turkish people want to see in jokes, various situations created by illiterate people or upstarts and their conversations being garnished with a bunch of f-words. With notoriously increasing censorship in Turkey, his movies will always be among top- rated ones in Turkey. When this movie is screened on TV someday, in my opinion 90 percent of jokes will be censored and we will be watching something different. Therefore, well done Cem for reminding us of our sense of humor and for not being overwhelmed with self-censorship like most comedians. As for criticism, I found the second-half of the movie and the ending a bit too long. The story development could have been better. The old hand, Zafer Algöz, is introduced too late in the movie. The religious-looking guy could have been much better. Last but not least, Irina Ivkina is gorgeous. Thanks Cem for introducing us such a beauty. In my opinion, she is more beautiful than Bond girls. All in all, I believe that this movie will be among the best in comedy genre this year in Turkey.

Whenever I watch Cem YILMAZ and want to laugh, I am disappointed. Its scenario as well as acting is lower than expected.

Cem YILMAZ has two masterpieces: Yahsi Bati and Arog. Apart from these two movies, it is better to watch his stand-up shows, not his movies.

Most of the time, he chooses same players to work with in his movies. This is why he cannot come up with innovation.

To me Cem Yılmaz is the funniest person in Turkey by far! But the film i watched yesterday was not funny that much. Maybe this was because of my high expectation level, maybe it was really not good enough. Although Cem Yılmaz always has positive credits from my perspective, i can easily say that this was his worst film. I know that he has the talent to do much better movies. Because he has a brilliant sense of humour.Although he has great ideas, i can not say the same thing about his direction performance. I think he ought to work with better professionals to convert his great ideas to great movies. Because, compare to his stand- up shows, his movies are really sucks. As a Cmylmz lover i expect better movies from him.

p.s: The Russian girl was really beautiful but her performance was one of the worst performance i have seen recently!

The beauty of the film cannot be understood from the trailers, you should watch it.

(Some people say that Cem Yılmaz(CY) asks vote from his fans, I don't believe in that, every film has its own audience. Besides, no one knows who votes from here so CY cannot know if any of his fans vote or not. Actually, I am not a fan of any famous person. If others like a movie but you don't, you can't blame that the ratings here are not real. You don't have to like every movie and cannot judge others' choices.)

I saw the movie last night at the premiere, it was funny even from the start. This film has a more international aspect compared to past films of CY because it is located in Sofia, Bulgaria & has foreign actor/actresses, foreign people (producers, assistant directors, etc) who have worked in the making of the film.

"Ali Baba & the 7 Dwarfs", has references to many Hollywood movies, including Hunger Games, Predator, James Bond. In some scenes, you can hear good Turkish local music (especially Barış Manço's songs) sang by the actors, themselves. İzzet Altınmeşe's son is also in the film starring as his father's youth. There is also reference to a previous film of CY, "Av Mevsimi" with a song, "Hayde Gidelum".

In all his movies, CY is successful reflecting his local values on the screen & interacting them with the foreign ones in a critical way.

It was very well thought to use a character, Boris Mancov who knows many languages including English, German, French, Italien, Arabian, etc.

There are many parts in the film that makes you really amused & these amusements keep your attention, your mood high till the end of the film while making you really laugh a lot at many times. (Ex: "How Şenay help you?")

Just before the scene when Şenay(Cem Yılmaz), İlber (Çetin Altay) & Veronika (Irina Ivkina) come across Kenan Memedov(Zafer Algöz), Kenan Memedov looks around the forest from underground with a periscope. In this scene, Kenan Memedov character reminds the wizard in the forest, Radagast the Brown in the Lord of the Rings Series. Zafer Algöz's Azerbaijan accent is perfect & his manners, the way he tells who he really is, is funny.

With this film, CY has answered again that he doesn't use same actors or actresses in all his films. Çetin Altay, Josi Mizrahi, Irina Ivkina, Can Yılmaz(brother of Cem Yılmaz), and many other new faces are in "Ali Baba & the 7 Dwarfs". In one scene we see Ozan Güven (the actor recently from the film, "Pek Yakında") in a picture that Kenan Memedov shows us. Although this is Irina Ivkina's first acting experience, she is natural & successful. She adds a good image among other characters with her different Turkish accent (but fluent) & with her native Russian. Fahradin Fahradinov & Mariya Anastasyeva who played the roles of Interpol agents were also very well fit in the film.

In summary, I advise you to watch this movie which is in theaters today, if you want to have fun, forget about the stresses of life & if you want to watch characters who have nice wit (=are ​ skilled at using words in a ​clever and ​humorous way).

I wish CY, the director, actor & scenarist of "Ali Baba & the 7 Dwarfs" will make another film again soon. Turkish movie needs such brave & intelligent people who can make local values spread internationally & who can introduce Turkish actors, actresses to the world.

Cem Yılmaz(and his team) is great at synthesizing original works out of clichés. If you focus on short moments you'll be bored but overall it feels different. This movie aligns with that premise. The parts about the struggle of common Turkish people with foreign languages and Europe -Bulgaria in particular- are hilarious. Some impressive cold war era gadgets were on scene. Commercial product placements were smart and not irritating.

Cons: it's nowhere near Yahşi Batı, even the late appearance of Zafer Algöz could not raise the bar. The content was insufficient to justify the movie length, it should end in 90 minutes at most. Overall 6.5/10