Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee made an astonishing addition to his extensive filmography with the new feature Life of Pi.
Pi Patel was raised in a zoo in Pondicherry, India. Literally. Patel’s father, Santosh, was the zookeeper at the local zoo and was troubled by the political situation in India at the time. The conflict drove the Patel family to sell some of the zoo’s animals and take the rest with them on the next freight train out of India.
Several nights into their journey there was a mysterious shipwreck that left Pi stranded on the pacific in a small life boat with four unlikely companions– a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a massive Bengal tiger.
Originally written by Yann Martel and adapted by David Magee, Ang Lee exemplifies all elements of production through the star of the film Suraj Sharma. This film is Sharma’s first and hopefully not his last as he is a wonderful actor. Sharma pulls the viewer into his physical and emotional journey as he must conquer problems that millions of people have to face every day– while pretending that he’s head to head with a Bengal tiger, of course.
While watching this film, I’m sure many people thought that the tiger was real and, for some of the time, it was– but never around Sharma since that would be dangerous.
The special effects were spectacular and created a life-like feel. Some films make the mistake of going overboard with the effects and often make something that looks too impossible; even for the movies.
This movie is a must-see and receives four North Stars (out of a possible five).
The utilization of CGI effects created an atmosphere for the viewer that could not have been created otherwise without overdoing it. This sets itself aside from other movies like John Carter, where the film crews goal seemed to be spending millions of dollars on over exaggerated effects that over powered any effect that the movie was intended to have on the viewer.
The character development in this film was exceptional. Especially the fact that the adult Pi was describing himself as a young boy to another man to set the stage for the film.
I can not give this movie a full five out of five because I have not read the book. To fully understand and value an adapted screenplay, one must first read the literature that it’s adapted from. I am lacking in this field, therefore I can not adequately rank it at full credit.
The ending of the movie is also confusing for someone who hasn’t read the book, but it may be for someone who has read the book as well.
That’s up to you to decide. See Life of Pi, in theaters now.
