Sunday, March 3, 2013

Review: Life of Pi

Review: Life of Pi
*Spoilers Alert.
  Do NOT forget to rate the post when you finish!
Official "Life of Pi" Poster.
      "Ang Lee" proved to everyone that 'Life of Pi' can be brought to the big screen. 'Life of Pi' is a magnificent and spiritual work of art that has been done beautifully into an awesome movie.

      The story revolves around a 16 year old Indian boy named 'Piscine Molitor Patel'(Suraj Sharma) , aka 'Pi', who is stranded in the sea with a Bengal tiger called 'Richard Parker', after a boat carrying his family and the zoo's animals sunk, killing everyone except him and the tiger. And here you will see a journey, whose title is 'survival'. The movie includes adult 'Pi'(Irrfan Khan), 'Pi''s mother 'Gita Patel'(Tabu), 'Pi''s father 'Santosh Patel'(Adil Hussain), 'Pi''s older brother 'Ravi Patel'(Vibish Sivakumar), the writer (Rafe Spall), and the cook (Gerard Depardieu). 
      'Life of Pi' is a movie that will really blow you away. To make a movie, that on paper may seem difficult to make, and to do it in that amazing way is really astonishing. Huge praise should be given to the director "Ang Lee". What is really good about this movie is that it is genuinely a very good 3D movie, which does not include any superheroes of any kind but it does have a great story. From the minute the movie begins you are interested in knowing what will happen even though you may already know what might occur. And here high props should be given to the way 20th century fox marketed this movie.
      The directing of "Ang Lee"(winner of the 2013 Oscar for 'Best Director') can be described as aesthetic as well as poetic. And that is because he was able to make everything in the movie have a meaning without making it look silly. The spiritual theme within the movie was really well done through the entire film, which I admired due to the fact that few people are able to merge movies and spirituality in a good way as 'Life of Pi'. Although I haven’t watched it in 3D, which I regret by the way, I was constantly imagining the movie in 3D. This movie has one of the best special effects I have ever seen. And speaking about effects I would like to commend the people who made this happen "Bill Westenhofer", "Guillaume Rocheron", "Erik-Jan de Boer" and "Donald R. Elliott", whom by the way won an Oscar for 'Best Visual Effects'(truly deserved). Best track of 'Life of Pi''s soundtrack was definitely 'Pi's Lullaby', which was nominated for 'Best Original Song' at the 2013 Oscars.
      The beginning of the movie was a little bit slow; nevertheless, necessary for the character's development throughout the movie. I would have liked to have more scenes between 'Pi' and his love interest at the beginning 'Anandi'. From when the storm begins and until the end of the film, this was my favorite part. Everything within this part was amazing. From the beautiful scenery, such as the boat in the middle of the night filled with stars and the whale jumping, to the psychological aspects, like the way 'Pi' was training 'Richard', everything was a blast to watch. The ending is so like the one in 'Inception' and that was really shocking. I never expected it to happen and I liked that "Ang Lee" played with this matter more that the book did. This made the movie even much better.
      "Suraj Sharma" is another rising star. I was really pleased with the way he was able to develop this character. He really did an amazing job in interpreting his character's growth and portraying it on the big screen. And working with a digital character and imagining him on set had to be difficult, to say the least, so props to his work. It must have been difficult for him to show the character's commitment for living, and at the same time still keeping his spiritual love to God, nature, and animal. But he was able to do it almost perfectly. Moving on with the CGI-ed tiger 'Richard Parker', I think an award should be given to the best digital character. If there were such an award, 'Richard Parker' would have definitely won it. I mean this tiger was the star of the movie, and it was not even real (CRAZY!). But honestly speaking, I liked the equal and fair mix between making it loveable, but at the same time keeping in mind that in the end this is an animal. And the chemistry between "Suraj" and the Bengal Tiger was incredible. "Irrfan Khan" was amazing also as the old 'Pi' and the emotions he was able to convey, especially at the end were great. The other supporting characters also did a great job.
      Although 'Life of Pi' may seem as just a visual effects movie, it is one of the best stories I have ever heard and seen being made into a great movie. 'Life of Pi' is definitely worth the watch.

"Life of Pi".
-"Life of Pi" Info:
-Starring: Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Rafe Spall, Adil Hussain, Vibish Sivakumar, and Gerard Depardieu.
-Based on: 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel.
-Studio(s): 20th Century Fox.
-Directed by: Ang Lee.
-Music by: Mychael Danna.
-Running Time: 127 minutes.
-Budget: $ 120,000,000.
-Box Office: Domestic(US): $ 124,987,023.
                    Foreign: $ 484,029,524.
-Ratings: - IMdb: 8.1/10.
                - Rotten Tomatoes: 87%.
                - Metacritic: 79%.

                -PERSONAL RATING: 8.7/10.

-"Life of Pi" Trailer:

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