The moment I saw Zubby Michael in the Nollywood movie; The Rising City Of Dreams, I knew the movie would be tilted towards gangsterism or cultism. But, well, this movie review isn’t about how Zubby Micheal has been stereotyped, so let’s move on.
The Rising City of Dreams is the story of area boys and their rivalry. It focuses on Ezedike, the head of the eastern part of Oju Alaafia market area boys and his rival, Tolu Tilapipa, the head of the western part of Oju Alaafia market area boys.
The rivalry worsened when the overall leader, Sniper, mentioned he was moving to a bigger position and would nominate either of them to become the head of Oju Alaafia market. Tolu Tilapia would go to any length to take up that position, while although Ezedike was interested in the position, he had just fallen in love with a tailor and wouldn’t compromise his relationship with her for anything.
In a bid to be the head, Tolu Tilapia kidnaps Sniper and Ezedike’s lover, and his goal is to kill Ezedike, leaving Sniper with no choice other than to make Tolu Tilapia the head.
Did Tolu Tilapia succeed in his plans, or was Ezedike able to fight his way to become a leader? Go find out yourself.
In as much as I see where the writer is going with the story, I strongly believe that the writer was more interested in showing us how the gangster world is rather than telling an actual story. There was a storyline that was pretty clear, but we spent too much time watching fights that it became boring.
The worse part of it is that most of these gangsters couldn’t even make us enjoy the show. There were also some scenes in which I would love to ask the writer or director what exactly was going on, and an example is when Tolu Tilapia got down from his car just to shout, and then he entered his car again. Abeg, gangster experts, naso them dey always do? Because I confuse. Another question I will like to ask is how a whole Sniper could be easily be kidnapped.
The director has a lot of work to do because Rising City of Dreams could have been told more interestingly with better directing. First, I have a big problem with the casting, but I will get to that later in this review. Then, why were the fights scenes rough and disorganized? Once again, the movie would have been a really good one if handled by a better director.
I agree I wouldn’t say I like the fact that Zubby Michael has been stereotyped, but I cannot deny that he is a good actor and he plays this gangster role really well.
However, in Rising City of Dreams, he killed his role. Femi Branch is a fantastic actor, but he wasn’t the best fit for the role. I wonder why Reminiscence didn’t just take up that role because he did really well in the movie. Yvonne Jegede and Jide Kosoko also killed their roles.
The sound in the movie wasn’t the best at all, but for set, light and costume, they didn’t do badly at all.
As a whole, the Rising City of Dreams wasn’t a terrible watch but a lot could have been better. It would be getting a 4/10.
