Amitabh Bachchan’s act is classy in this fun yet flawed film…

If you’re looking for a good swords and sandals epic with mystical creatures, you’ll have to look elsewhere because this one is a turkey.

If you find a movie better than Birdman, I’ll clip off my wings, bathe in batter and offer myself on the platter at the nearest KFC.

You’ll leave the theater wowed by the acting, yet unimpressed by the film.

Strangely the director David Koepp has made good films in the past – like ‘Premium Rush’ and ‘Ghost Town’, the latter especially worked as a comedy because of the charming cast and the genuinely great lines, and also the restrained nature of it. If only he’d spent more time writing good jokes instead of focusing on Depp’s star power to propel the film forward. Much like their previous collaboration ‘Secret Window’, this one is a turkey that’ll only be remembered for its legendarily small haul at the box office.

Though Dolly Ki Doli doesn’t qualify as an awful movie – it’s not tacky and is often funny – it does, regrettably, end up as forgettable fluff and a hugely wasted opportunity.

So no matter whether you like the film or not, it’s hard to deem Pandey a thought provoking filmmaker because Baby seems a lot sillier a few hours after you see it. Pandey is a smart, commercial filmmaker though, because Baby basically exists for the singular purpose of filling three hours of your life with slickly-crafted and frequently outlandish thrills. Just like Ajay himself, the movie doesn’t stop until its mission is complete. Just plug some cotton in your ears though, the music is loud enough to wake up the dead.

This movie has the same unmistakable stench of disappointment and the waft of simplistic tripe that his previous movie ‘The Fifth Estate’ had. The same can also be said about director Morten Tyldum who showed so much promise in the Norwegian film ‘Headhunters’ and sold out so easily to the comforts of Hollywood.

Kyle is presented as an uber hero on the run from an uber (also sniper) villain, and it turns into a standard issue thriller, in fact a lesser version of ‘The Green Zone’, rather than the epic biopic you expect it to be. And if you’re looking for some gunplay action in a war thriller, ‘American Sniper’ doesn’t even achieve anything substantial on that front.

The only bright spark in the film is the music by Johan Johansson, and although James Marsh showed tremendous hold of emotion and subject in his previous movies ‘Man on wire’ and ‘Project Nim’, the spark is sorely missed this time around.