Since I was a little kid, I was a big fan of the El Shayateen El 13 (The 13 devils) novels.
It was a series of books intended for youngsters in which a group of young Arab adventurers fight evil under the leadership of a mystery man called Mr. Zero.
Each one of them belonged to a different Arab country and used a code number besides his name. No. 1 was Ahmed from Egypt.
The movie full name is called El Shayateem, the Comeback.
Hence it is about the return of a reluctant Ahmed for a new adventure; after what appears as a failed mission that took place 20 years ago.
This time the fight is against a vicious Antiquities smuggling gang. The movie contains a couple of nice twists and is entertaining as a whole. Especially bearing in mind that the this is the first full feature for a young director/scenario writer.
The movie starts with the wrong assumption that everybody has a back ground of the original stories. This left 90% of the audience quite clueless for perhaps the first 15 minutes. Then another slow half hour was lost watching Ahmed attempting to gather up his team as well as bits and pieces of the conspiracy at hand.
The movie picks up some pace after that when the action begins. Although, in my opinion, a specialist in action sequences was badly needed. Too much hand held camera and fast camera motion do not necessarily mean suspense and action!! The film music was basically a series of 1970's motives, a little bit more effort and tunes were also needed there.
All the girls in the movie seem to like Ahmed but nothing materializes; as he is too preoccupied in his current mission as well as full of remorse over the last adventure that went bad a long time ago.
So after 2 hours, all the bad guys are neutralized except for their leader who escapes in anticipation of a sequel.
Do not hold your breath though, I do not think this sequel will see the light any time soon.
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