Blue : **

I admit I got caught in the hype. I saw an early morning review from a popular website wherein the reviewer claimed BLUE was the most stunning Hindi movie he'd ever seen and after singing odes to it's technical brilliance, flawless storyline and outstanding graphics, told us it was time to break the champagne to celebrate the success of a film this Diwali.

Mister, I've got the bottle of champagne right here... could you kindly step forward so I can break it over your head ?!!

Trust me, this is one 'blue' film that ain't worth the ticket price ( Oh my poor 250 bucks.. I'm sorry KFC chicken. I chose wrong this time. )

Where do I even begin ? They say it's 1 hour 59 minutes of adrenaline packed action. Hmmm. Let's see. You have two apparent fishing buddies, one of whom knows the location to a buried sea treasure. That's our Sanjay 'the man' Dutt ( if he can get a gorgeously hot lingerie wearing Lara Dutta to have a live-in relationship with him when he's fat, not rich and sells fish in the Bahamas, he is THE MAN in my books. ) His buddy Akshay keeps pestering him to reveal the location of the treasure. Zayed Khan is Sanjay's brat bother ( ooh ! what an original role for him ) who gets into a lot of trouble with a local goon, Rahul Dev ( 50 million dollars worth of it ) and heads back to Sanjay for help.

Sounds promising ? It's not !!!

You see, nothing significant happens for the 1st one and a half hours of the movie. That's how long it takes to get Sanjay to say yes. The pace is too slow, there's no real adventure and the acting is downright silly at times. The action sequences look good , especially the biker bits, but are a total rip off ( see if you can spot Bad Boys 2 in a house action scene, anyone ? ) And the gaffes ? Don't get me started.

I mean, I may be wrong but do even rich fishermen usually wear designer clothes and fishing gear while fishing ? Or drive sports cars, yachts with jacuzzis and bikes ? Or just give away free designer bikes to new friends for fun ? And how many down-on-their-luck fishermen have boxing rings in their grand villa by the beach ( incidentally, note the beautiful house from the inside and later on when you see it from outside.. hmm. Was that the same house ? ) I'm not even gonna talk about how moderately successful fisherman Akshay has 2 new girls everytime we see him.

Seriously, if fishing is this lucrative, I'm giving up my "selling stolen kidneys" side business plans. The real money's in tuna, matey !!

Even the reason Sanjay doesn't want to go back to the treasure, once revealed, seems inadequate to me. If it were me in his place, I'd have abandoned my 3 best friends down there and gone for the gold, if need be.

And, of course, the eventual use of the bike in the yacht was hilarious.

Kylie Minogue looks good but it's a silly cameo really. Oh well, we made her dance Bollywood style.. whoopee !!!

The underwater sequences look stunning but are wasted. Like the audience, the sharks too seem bored of this trio of adventurers. Sanjay Dutt is in 'sleep mode' and looks to have aged a lot. The only time any emotion comes on his face is when anyone says "Lady in Blue"... which, incidentally, gets repeated often like a damn chant !!! It's like they're trying to awaken him by saying it.

Akshay's role is the designer label fisherman who you know has a trick up his sleeve. You can guess it right at the beginning so I'm not giving any hints. He also has some awesomely idiotic dialogues in his script... leave him alone for 2 minutes and he'll start repeating that the only nasha is risk or how the only hope for salvation for the family is THE LADY IN BLUE. Ok. Ok. We get it already !!!

Zayed Khan.. well, he's worked his 'flop' curse into another film hasn't he ? He tries hard here, gets the best stunts and all, but to no avail. Katrina Kaif is ok too in a small role. The only one likely to come out of this with compliments is Lara Dutta - she acts adequately, has toned up and looks ravishing in a bikini. If only Sanjay hadn't tried to copy her and wear skin tight swimsuits too... ooh !! That's gonna give me nightmares for a week.

A passing mention is the annoying music. Seriously, what the hell happened there with A.R.Rahman ? Don't dare tell me you liked Chiggy Wiggy or I swear I'll come over and Chiggy Wiggy you !!! None of the songs are worth it.

Overall, this ship, like the Lady in Blue, is gonna sink. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

P.S. I should have been warned when I saw the 'misleading website' I'd mentioned at the beginning named as one of the media partners for promoting this film. No wonder they gave it 4 stars.