not as good as all the hype

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

By Chance has anyone seen Jeetendra-Dharmendra starrer SAMRAAT(1982)? The film is somewhat similar The film has an okay plot but too stupid to be taken serious The ease at which Akshay lures Zayed and Sanju to get the treasure is really mystifying, they are several nonsense scenes like the scene when Rahul Dev is firing in Sanju's place and Lara tells Sanju to talk An action scene straightly lifted from TORQUE(2004), The underwater scenes leave you cold mostly, even the climax is clichéd stuff and not too convincing.Direction by Anthony Dsouza is horrible Music is okay Akshay Kumar looks cool but just repeats his act, his much publicised villainy role leaves you cold, Sanjay Dutt is a miscast, he with his weight gain doesn't look the part of a scuba diver and his act too is nothing great, Lara Dutta is not good, while Zayed Khan is as usual Katrina Kaif has a brief role and does her routine Rahul Dev is as usual

Touted as the most costly venture of Hindi Film Industry, "Blue" releases on this Diwali weekend to make the most of the Festival season. With tremendous hype in the air, fresh visuals on the screen and never before underwater action for the viewers, the movie had all the ingredients of becoming a blockbuster before its release. But now after going through the watery experience of 2 hours in the theater, I can only think about the huge amount of money spent on such a weak and baseless project.It really doesn't feel nice to write negative reviews about a project in which a lot is on stake in monetary terms. But what can be done, if the movie itself doesn't provide you anything positive or worth praising to rave about. Though, it starts off quite well with a brilliantly shot sequence where Akshay Kumar and Sanjay Dutt drive out a Shark from their underwater net. But after that, the movie goes on sliding on a never ending downwards slope sinking towards an unknown destination.Revolving around a conspiracy to reach a hidden underwater treasure, "Blue" has a completely uninteresting first half, with nothing appealing for the viewer related to its main theme. In fact if you simply skip it off and start watching the movie after its intermission, then you miss nothing but only a few chase sequences and two hot babes, Katrina and Lara Dutta. Apart from this, the main plot of the movie actually unfolds after the interval, when the three men are set to go for the treasure hunt. So, it all comes down to the last 30 minutes of the flick, where you desperately start waiting for something very exciting to happen related to the hidden wealth and bloody sharks.But unfortunately or rather very irresponsibly nothing happens even in the concluding moments of the movie and its climax simply leaves you confused and annoyed. There is no excitement felt as the treasure is found, there are no bloody games played with the sharks as shouted in the promotional campaign and there is not a single thrilling moment in this so called never before underwater thriller. Yes, there are breathtaking undersea shots worth watching and there are well conceived high quality actions sequences too, but…… Where is the content to win over the viewers? Where is the famous charming spell of Akshay Kumar and Sanjay Dutt? Where are the Sharks, heavily promoted in the T.V. campaigns? Where is the excitement which should be there in a treasure hunt movie?Besides this, the Kylie Minogue song is clearly added deliberately, which though sounds nice to the ears but has got nothing extraordinary to offer. All the chase sequences featuring Zayed Khan before and after the intermission are only there to add more glamour and gloss to the project. And as always the two gorgeous ladies feature in the movie as there can never be a Hindi Film without any hot heroines to set the screen on fire.Talking about its performances, there is neither the actual Sanjay Dutt in the movie nor the real Akshay Kumar. In other words you can only find some glimpses of their famous charisma on the screen in few particular scenes here & there. And the most annoying dialogues are where Akshay addresses Sanjay Dutt as "Seth Ji". I really couldn't find anything interesting or entertaining in this unique way of calling him "Seth Ji". May be the writers found it fresh & new, but this was earlier used by Mallika Sherawat in one of her movies too. On the other hand, Zayed Khan, surprisingly shines in his side role and Lara Dutta simply sizzles in her revealing outfits. Lara is undoubtedly looking more glamorous and different than any of her earlier releases. Both Katrina Kaif (in special appearance) and Rahul Dev have done justice to their short and usual roles.Musically, A. R. Rahman comes out with a few melodious numbers in the soundtrack, out of which "Chiggy Wiggy" has been already made famous by an extensive promotional strategy. Otherwise I think with Kylie Minogue being there for him, Rahman could have belted out something more exciting & sensational for her. Moreover, it was sad to see the finest song of the movie, "Fiqrana" being played as a music video along with the end credits.In short the best part of the movie is its Cinematography and that's it. The film simply fails to impress in any other department completely and only one man gets all the blame and he is the debutant director Anthony D'Souza. With such enormous amount of resources available at his disposal he should have given more stress on the story, script and content of the movie to ensure its box office success. But ignoring these essential elements of cinema, he focuses more on the look and feel of the project, which has never been the Box-Office success mantra ever. He surely has got the talent to deliver and may come up with a winner next time, but with "Blue" he can only expect the least.

The only good thing about this movie is it's new for bollywood audience and credit to director nd crew for THEIR hard work on the film. Sympathies aside, Indian audience have watched films like this b.f particularly Hollywood underwater films in recent years. Hollywood movies Jaws and The Deep both based on novels by peter benchley were benchmarks for these kind of films and for audience who loved this genre. Bt recent underwater films by Hollywood and now Blue are no better then the novels themselves, that is to have a story. Blue is a story less film and more about the visuals and the stunts, including wasting the bike stunts all the way in the east that led nowhere. The movie is more or less based on technical aspects of film making than based on a story of any kind. The lady in blue story is pretty good even though it consists of a stupid investigation in accusing the captain of being a traitor. At least Blue could have used this story and made it an historic marine story of sorts, but you end up having the villain(unimpressive akshay) search this treasure to "save the family's honor", while meaning no harm to put the sanjay's family thru all the tamasha.Ther were no twists even for double crossing rahul dev was dumb, b.c he wasn't interested in this movie at all while seeing his reactions. Overall, thers no treasure hunting b.c its only for a few scenes way down the second half and towards the end of the movie. The movie is sentimental and dull in the first half, nd the second half is of no interest by the time the movie ends.

The audience verdict on this one is likely to be split. For the people like me, who are completely in touch with Hollywood, who've seen films like 'Into the Blue', who've seen National Geographic and Discovery undersea documentaries, we're going to find nothing new here in terms of locales / settings and a very weak storyline. For all the others, it promises to showcase the beauty of the big blue, as never seen before on Indian screens and a story that is about average when compared to most other Indian films. The story involves the mystery of a treasure ship, 'Lady in Blue', a mysterious character named Aarav (Akshay) who seems to be rich, but no one is sure of how much or even how, Saagar (Sanjay Dutt), who is befriended and employed by Aarav, but has a mysterious reluctance to share the whereabouts of the missing treasure ship. Then there is Sam (Zayed Khan), Saagar's younger brother, who wants to be all mysterious and cool but ends up coming across like a spoilt brat, the kind who are good for nothing and assume the world owe's them a living. All he does in the film is get the bad guys to come after the good. Gulshan (Rahul Dev) is the official bad man, a role he plays well. Mona (Lara Dutta) is the official eye candy, while Katrina tries to be the eye candy but the miniscule length of her role and her dreadlocks seem to impede her from doing so. What the film does well is the underwater shots – its beautiful, nice, aesthetic and sensuous. Apparently, the first question Akshay had asked when the script was narrated was 'can you pull this off ?' and here his worries proved to be unfounded as debutant director Anthony D'Souza manages to get this part right. My only crib here, in fact would be that there wasn't enough action sequences set underwater. It also does justice to its two locales, Bahamas and Bangkok, capturing the relaxed Bohemian spirit and the natural beauty of the former. And the contrasting concrete jungle, seedy underbelly / steaminess of the latter. Where it is a let down is in terms of the script / story…too complicated / unnecessary sub-plots (involving the parents of some of the characters) and even worse, not enough done with all the 'mystery' – the answers to the treasure / Aarav's past / Saagar's reluctance are too trite, lacking depth and therefore leave you with an incomplete feeling. Also, none of the characters are built up well enough – you feel nothing for any of them – it is critical for us to care for the main leads of an 'action' film else they become nothing but 'action figurines', which sadly enough, they do in this case. Finally, casting is a serious issue in terms of Sanjay Dutt, who I fear is no longer suitable for action roles – he is clearly overweight and unfit and it shows. Also, his nickname in the film is 'Sethji' ? What was that about ? He is also way too old for Lara and so their romantic scenes together leave you bemused more than anything else. Akshay is fine but here he was let down by his poorly fleshed out role and also, once again, by his desire to look cool – his goatee doesn't suit him and neither do some of his costumes. Rahul Dev, in the most uncomplicated / straightforward role, is actually done well. And Lara is lovely – bubbly, easy on the eye and refreshing in a bikini. Always looking good. This film seemed intent on spending a lot of money. The whole sequence with Kylie was unnecessary, fitted even less into the story than Denise Richards in Kambakkth Ishq. There were several vehicles blown up, which didn't need to be. They should've spent more time and money fixing the script, maybe even eliminating some of the characters (Zayed ?). Then, even with possibly half the production budget and definitely a fourth of the marketing budget, it would've been a better film and a bigger hit. More reviews on apurvbollywood.blogspot.com