Review of Life of Pi (2012) by Navq — 22 Jan 2013

Storyline: Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) is a young Indian boy living in his fathers zoo. He has a great imagination and is always seeking out new meanings he thinks will give him the ultimate truth in religion but his father has financial problems so the board a ship with the animals and head for Canada but the ship hits heavy weather and an adventure begins.

Acting: This film had no weak points but if there was one thing where it could have been improved on was with the cast but perhaps it's not a valid fault as there was a certain charm that went with the role of Pi as played by Suraj Sharma. OK I just looked and see it's his first acting role so..... Anyway, this also had Irrfan Khan who was also not bad but I have seen much better from him. The rest of the main cast were CG animals and they were astounding.

Direction: Ang Lee did well and his film deserves all 11 nods from the Acadamy. Where this film betters Avatar is that it deals with our own planet and is all there in the real world to compare this with. His creation was as perfect as can be with our current technology (I do 3D CG) today.

Production: $120 million for this visual delight sounds about right. I could see where the money was spent and to me thats what counts. I don't know where reality and CG are mixed and that's so important. The tiger was stunning it was so good. It's the best lifelike animal I've ever seen and hope others will strive for this type of detail in future. The make-up was also awesome and again was realistic.

Conclusion: While this is a great story that transferred well to the screen it could have been even better. Like if you were to read the script for this and Castaway this would win but Castaway was told a bit better, know what I mean? Because of the cinematography and sound on this film it is almost perfect. Highly Recommended Score: 8.