El-Kanz: El-Haqiqah wa el-Khayal 1

Mohamed sa'ad has come back to his brilliant side. He stayed long time in the silly comedian frame, but by his role on this movie, he showed us a huge talent!

The film has four different stories that should be connected but it felt just the opposite, each story barely progressed and they all felt like they were heading nowhere. The plot was driven by cliches which just made some scenes very "cheesy" and the film ended up being a big insult to all the remarkable eras in Egyptian history.

The production set of the film is good which is exceptional for Egyptian cinema. It was great to see Mohamed Saad try a serious role which he portrayed well, all other performances in the film were just terrible. Mohamed Ramadan was doing another typical Mohamed Ramadan role just in a different era, not good at all.

Action scenes were very random, they would do anything just to make a character look cool which were poorly choreographed and the output would probably make the audience laugh.

The film tried so hard to be a blockbuster but it backfired miserably and the output was just disappointing with an inconclusive ending.

I really liked it, three stories at different times, interconnected, somewhat long, I couldn't finish it in time, it left Netflix... A pity, a valuable work, great Egyptian production, different from those comedies full of unnecessary machismo and slaps in the face...

Maybe it is unfair to judge this movie, before having seen the conclusion of it in part 2. On the other hand a first movie should work without the sequel or the continuation. In this case it doesn't really work that way. The movie is not bad and I get if people feel more excited about it. But I do think that there are too many cliches being served.

The movie has action and suspense and for the budget I reckon it is decent enough (again your own expectations will play a role of how you view this - no pun intended). It's a bit long and way too predictable too, but I also have seen worse, production values are really good - still I'm unsure if I'll watch the sequel

The story is very unique and new for an Arabic movie and what makes it even better is the well acting of everyone specially Mohamed Saad, first time see him in a serious role and he did so perfect. The designs were also so good makes you feel like everything is so real. The only thing was not so perfect was the make up so hope they work better on it in part 2 of the movie which I am so excited and can't wait to see it!