Wordiezett So much average

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

moro_650 Imagine when the bestselling novel(Alaa el Aswany's Yacoubian Building) in the middle east is made into a movieWith an adaptation made by "Wahid Hamed"(the best screen writer in Egypt), and starring actors like :Adel Imam, Nour el Sheriff, Yousra...etc. , And the rising director and highly recommended "Marwan Hamed" which was his first movie. And let us not forget the huge budget that was set for the movie(about 22 million Egyptian pounds). All those elements were gathered to present a movie that was supposed to be a worldwide award winning movie or let us say a highly artistic movie. Unfortunately that wasn't enough!, all what I've seen in this movie wasn't so special, nothing spectacular, although the issues this film dealt with were hot and controversial for the Arab world I felt nothing.The movie talks about Egypt in the 1990's through yacoubian building which was supposed to be luxurious building in the past and still until now but not as much as in the past where some characters whom you can really see in our society, like Zaki el Desouky who's a 60 year old playboy who lives in yacoubian building with his sister in the same apartment and they are always fighting and yelling each other, Zaki also misses how this country was clean and beautiful even more than European countries he is also astonished about what's going on in the society when El Haj Azzam who used to polish his shoes one day owns half of the stores in his neighborhood now and lives in the same building with him, and is a part of the Egyptian parliament!! While el Haj Azzam takes advantage of the economical situation of a young widow whom her husband died in Iraq and marries her secretly because of some sexual need, he also enters the parliament to protect his dirty business.We also see the homosexual editor in chief of a french newspaper in Egypt "Hatem Rashid" who seduces a villager soldier, we see how this guy lives secretly in a society that cannot bear such a direction and how he reacts towards teasing from others about his homosexuality and the huge guilt the villager soldier "Abd Rabbo" feels due to his religious beliefs.There's also "bousaina" who loves "Hassan" her neighbor and they cannot afford to get married, after the dreams of "Hassan" of becoming a Police officer were gone because of his social level, they separate and select different paths in life; he becomes a religious extremist and she uses her body to get what she needs in life. This is a brief summary of the movie which dealt with a lot of characters without you being really sympathized with them!, despite the good acting the movie needed better adaptation, you feel like it's talking about a lot of things but they don't really touch you, most people in Egypt were impressed by the sparkling names of actors and the controversial issue the movie failed to discuss, I think this movie was a heavy load for "Marwan Hamed" as his first experience he didn't show much of a special vision and couldn't manage the script his father wrote,other big names could have done this project and make a huge difference. watching this movie isn't a 100% bad idea it's a chance for those who don't know much about Egypt to take a look about what's happening in there but it will not satisfy them as a film.

omarz-1 If I compared this movie with all Egyptian movies, i'd give it 10. What's different about this one ? Same actors. that's about it. Everything else is specially different. I've never seen such performance. Lighting, music, clothing, decor, lighting again and editing.There is a theme given to every characters that is shown by camera positioning, specially the background. no stupid close-ups like Egyptians love. no clown makeup on every actor and actress. no exaggerations. No on-stage-like acting in real-life situations (you'll only know what i mean if you've seen enough).The screen writer who is also the director is brilliant.However, the story itself has no obvious target. the end is something like "and so on. no comment" or "Life goes on. stay still"!! it just shows you events and people. it's OK but not what i expected.This is my first review so... thanks for reading

Ibrahim Dashti This movie offers three stories that are not linked except by having some of their events taking place at the same building: Yacoubian Building (Emarat Yaqubyan). The small hints in one story that may refer to another one are so insignificant that you can take them out of script without any damage to any of the stories. The main story is about the rich playboy (Adel Emam) who is turning old. The second story is about the devout merchant (Noor el-Sharif) and his quest for more. The last small story is about the homosexual newspaper editor and his quest for a lover. Having so disconnected stories in one building might be a symbol for the way Cairan society is: so many disconnected lives living in one big city. And this applies for all of Egypt too.Unsurprising about Adel Emam's movies, this one is full of sexual scenes and is extremely anti-religious with uncompromising tone. Decency is not welcome here and is not encouraged. It is pro-'mutual consent sex' but anti-'sexual exploitation': something that Emam has always featured in his movies against the norms of the Muslim traditions of Egypt and the Arab World. When discussing religion, the movie gives the extreme cases of terrorists and opportunists. No moderate Islam (or Christianity) is introduced although Egyptian and Arab societies are mostly moderate and honest.I'm not surprised by being disappointed. Egyptian movie-making should stop being so liberal and turn to the truth of Egyptian society. I'm not Egyptian, but I know that Egyptians are fed up with negative stereotypes that are introduced in their local movies. Egyptians should not be blamed for attacking this movie and all other movies that don't mirror the facts of Egyptian society.The story is great, the movie-making is nice, but the messages are bad. I would recommend seeing this movie, but don't take it seriously. It is not the whole truth, and many events are untrue (like allowing extremist Friday prayer and sermon in a major mosque under the currently effective Egyptian martial laws). It is just drama and not true life, but full of symbolism and some true things.

elkarf Yes indeed,i expected this movie to be better than this..it's a good movie but it's not supposed to be just good,it's supposed to be excellent because it's portraying a wonderful book and with a gorgeous huge cast. The book was better in relating characters and analyzing them,i know that the book has a better space to do that and that the movie had a limited time,although it was 3 hours long,but still the movie gave much on screen space to some stories that weren't that deep like Adel Emam's story and little time to more deep and important ones like terrorism in Mohamed Emam's story and Gayness in Khaled El Sawy's story. The casting and acting were very good except for Tamer Abd El Men'em who was very annoying and not fit for his role! Also Adel Emam was not that good although he finally played a role that fits his age. New people in the movie like Bassem Samra{i guess that's his name!} and Mohamed Emam were great,especially the first. Best acting was by Khaled El Sawy who played Hatem Rasheed,the gay journalist..he was perfect and deep unlike Youssif Sha'ban in "Hamam El Malatili",who was very naive and stupid!! i'd give Khaled El Sawy a 10/10. Also Is'ad Youniss,although her role was small,whenever she appeared on screen,she just entertained me. Khaled Saleh was gorgeous as usual as Kamal El Shaz.. i mean Kamal El "Fuly" lol The Montage was absolutely terrible! that's all i can say about it. I think it's a very good Egyptian movie that deals with the real Egyptian society and it must be seen. Finally,i applause for Ali Abo Shady for not cutting anything out of the movie.