The Life of Pi

This past Saturday I went to the movies. I thought "Man With the Iron Fist" was still in theaters, but it turned out it wasn't. It is too bad, because I enjoy Quentin Tarantino films, and usually he makes good action films. The only other film that my date wanted to see was "Life of Pi" since she read the book the movie was based on, so I agreed to it. I never read the book, but I think I might at some point.

Just letting everyone know before they continue to read this, this blog contains spoilers.

(This image is from en.wikipedia.org)

I was impressed visually with this film. I saw the trailer with the scene of the flying fish and was a little intrigued by it, but I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to see it in theaters. I had watched an online review of it by Movie Bob on the Escapist, and since he didn't care for anything else besides the visuals in the movie I didn't think I would really want to see it. I pretty much agree with his analysis.

The visuals are interesting to a certain point, but there are a ton of computer generated animals and scenes that really didn't work for me. Computer animation should only be in movies that are completely computer generated. It just looks ridiculous when movie creators try to make realistic creatures in CGI for the entire movie and expect the audience to believe they are real. I can understand why the movie creators had to make CGI animals and scenes because most of the animals in this movie are endangered species and would most likely get hurt or killed if they tried these specific scenes.

Unfortunately, the only time it was playing was in 3D of coarse. It was interesting in 3D, but it wasn't worth the extra $11.

The entire movie follows Pi, and I don't really care for his character at times. Sure there are instances when his youthfulness gets him into trouble and there were some funny spectacles with him and the tiger, but he is the sort of character who should have others surround him. Pi has these weird hallucinations sometimes, and it appears likely that you cannot believe Pi's story. By the end of the movie he describes what happened to these Japanese people who are questioning him about why the boat sank, but the Japanese people demand a different story that is actually believable. Pi gives them a much more believable story with no animals, no no mysterious island, and instead he is on a life boat with just people. We are led to believe that Pi's story is supposed to make people believe in God, but all it seems to do is say "you go through life believing things based on facts and more believable stories, or you can accept the fantastical and choose for yourself whether or not you believe in God." This is a bit of a strange movie. I am strongly looking forward to "The Hobbit" coming out this weekend.