Movie Review: "Life of Pi" (2012)

Image Source

Oscar Movie: "Life of Pi"
Year Nominated: 2012
Director: Ang Lee
Rating: PG
Running Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Did It Win?: No.

"Pi" (Gautam Belur/Ayush Tandon/Suraj Sharma/Irrfan Khan) tells the story of his life growing up in India and his family's journey to Canada. The primary focus of the film involves a shipwreck where Pi must survive at sea on a life boat with only a tiger as his companion.

Ang Lee loves his visuals. He really, truly makes beautiful cinema. He's an artist, and he has an idea of what he wants things to look like, and he executes them flawlessly. His visual are stunning. I worry that perhaps we lost a little bit of this film's magic by not watching it in the theater in 3D (which we never, ever say).

The story is a unique coming-of-age film about a young boy trying to find his path in life while discovering who he is, what religion(s) to pursue, and balancing his philosophies with reason and science. It is very well acted, too. It does drag along a bit at some points, mostly early in the film. Despite the special effects being really good, we still can't get passed the fact that you can tell when some of the animals are digital (IE: birds in the beginning, the tiger, the whale, the meerkats, etc)...as good as Ang Lee's digital effects were, they still are not perfect, but they are probably as good as they are going to get.

Overall, this is a nice movie to watch for a family night. it's rated PG, so there is only mild animal violence or bad language. If you do choose to watch this movie on DVD, try to find the biggest screen you can find and watch it there.

My Rating: 7/10
BigJ's Rating: 7/10
IMDB's Rating: 8.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 87%
Do we recommend this movie: Yes!