Life of Pi (2012) - Review

Ang Lee delivers an awe-inspiring story with the beautiful visuals and brilliant storytelling. The story follows Pi as he survives a shipwreck and must share his lifeboat with a tiger. This simple tale is told in an engaging way, as Pi must tackle new obstacles every step of the way and learn to coincide with the tiger. Through this journey, Ang Lee ropes in themes on religion, humanity, and storytelling itself to create a profound effect. Sometimes I wish it was more subtle, but that doesn’t effect too much. This profound effect also applies to the visual storytelling as well. This film is beautiful with a capital B. Changing aspect ratios, long takes, framing, all of it is used to make it beautiful. They actually used a real tiger, wait, it’s not! The VFX in this are breathtaking, this tiger should be up there with one of the standout CGI creations like Gollum and Caesar. Some of the CGI in the beginning doesn’t hold up too well, but that is ignorable by the time the marvel that is Richard Parker arrives. Paired with great performances from Suraj Sharma and Irrfan Khan, and Life of Pi is profound picture that nails close to everything on an emotional and technical level.