Blue has a very arresting pre-credits sequence that promises it might be an interesting Western. That promise is not fulfilled; indeed, as the film continues along, revealing itself to be an incredibly dull and actively annoying picture, one begins to wonder if perhaps one imagined that opening, and to worry that perhaps the weariness brought on by the rest of the film caused one to hallucinate the opening. Bad films are nothing new, of course, and on occasion their awfulness can be cause for a perverse kind of celebration. That is sadly not the case with Blue, which is entirely too earnest to be any fun at all. Eventually that earnestness becomes pretension, and after that most viewers will become irritated that they have spent so much time on the film. Those that stay, hoping that it will get better, will be sadly disappointed. The screenplay is dreadful, but no better is Silvio Narizzano's inept direction, which is lacking in pace, point of view and style. A talented cast is, at best, lost at sea; at worst -- and I'm looking at you, Terence Stamp -- the actors are embarrassing.