Just saw Life of Pi. It’s about Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, a teenage Indian boy who’s family is moving to Canada, and along with them the animals in their zoo, they’re going to sell the animals to someone in the Americas. While on the transport ship they run in to a storm and the ship sinks. Pi manages to get on a life boat and so he must survive. Sounds simple enough.
The good; the movie looks amazing. The images are stunning. Did they use a real tiger at all? I can’t tell. The journey of Pi in the middle of endless ocean is remarkably covered. Much like Castaway we manage to be enthralled by a single focus point, and the emotional beats are certainly there.
Did I mention that the movie looks great? Ang Lee paints wonderful images.
The bad; it’s Castaway with a Indian boy and a Tiger, or Open Water, or Frozen … see where I’m going? The journey of the film is nothing new. Ang Lee manages to stretch out a smaller amount of story in to a feature length film. I don’t plan on seeing this film again, it doesn’t have replay value to me. But I am glad having seen it.
The film brings up the question of God and his role in our lives, but then quickly drops it, much like the lack-luster Prometheus. I would’ve liked some more dwelling on this inner struggle, there’s a lot of time spent on the ocean isolated, this eternal question should’ve had more time devoted to it.
Overall, I enjoyed watching Life of Pi, don’t need to see it again, but I was left wanting some more. Something new that I hadn’t seen in the other similar movies mentioned above.
*SPOILER* The ending sort of bugged me, where Pi is being interviewed as to what happened with the ship wreck, the survival story of the Tiger and other animals… compared to humans on the ship? The Tiger is Pi, the Zebra is the kind Japanese Sailor, the Jackal is the French Cook… I’m not sure what the point of that was? Is it supposed to be like Fight ? I just didn’t see why the metaphor with the animals had to be there, but that could be because of the book. *END SPOILER*