Amazing CGI coupled with a pretty good story

Rating: 8/10 (9 October 2015)

Life of Pi is a technical masterpiece of computer generated images, or CGI for short. It is leap a of imagination containing deep culturally rich characters, smooth transitions, gorgeous score, and a layered story. From the director Ang Lee, who created Hulk and Brokeback Mountain, comes a triumphant technical masterpiece that is on par with movies like Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity and James Cameron's Avatar. Life of Pi is a powerful visual adventure that will have the audience pondering the ending while thoroughly enjoying the journey.
Life of Pi depicts a middle aged Indian man from Pondicherry named Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi for short, portrayed by Irrfan Khan (from Slumdog millionaire and Jurassic World) who shares the story about his tragic struggle of surviving 227 days on a boat lost at sea. Adolescent Pi, son of a zoo keeper (played by novice actor Suraj Sharam who received the part accidentally when accompanying his brother to auditions) tells how his family was planning to move to Winnipeg Canada when his boat was destroyed, leaving Pi as the only human survivor. Left on the life boat, he is accompanied by a severely injured zebra, an orangutan named orange juice who seems to have lost her offspring, a conniving hyena and a Bengali tiger that due to a clinical error is named "Richard Parker", who all travel on a spatial journey with Pi.
Life of Pi's strongest scene would be Pi's childhood and how he was named Piscine Molitor after a French swimming pool, causing other children to make fun of his name because it sounded like "Pissing Patel". Through creative ingenuity, he convinces the kids at school to shorten his name to Pi Patel, and this opening serves as a strong hook for the Life of Pi. The scene with middle aged Pi retelling his story intertwined with his flashbacks does not break the viewer's emersion as it is seamlessly connected through cross fading. It also gives the cruel backstory that will be needed to understand the boat scene later in the film.
The story of the tiny life boat seems intertwined with the many symbols of faith and man verses the environment. The notions of strength, courage, survival and the struggle of faith in Pi's life are present throughout the film. Before the crash, Pi claims to be not only Hindu like his father and family but also a practicing Muslim and Christian, which is a very interesting character trait. Throughout Pi's 227 day journey, God comes to help him in many different forms. Ang Lee captures and presents a full range of the many forms that God takes in this movie, from the giant whale breaching the surface of the water to the mystical island populated by meerkats. Life of Pi from the get-go lets the audience know that it is going to be an adventure that "makes you believe in God." Special mention goes to Rhythm & Hues Studio who created the visual effects for the movie, Life of Pi. Without the hard work of the men and woman working on special effects, Life of Pi would have failed to reach its full potential. For the majority of the movie, the tiger, Richard Parker, was created using CGI. However, for the scenes where they did splice footage of the real tiger and the CGI tiger, it became hard to distinguish between the two. In the behind the scenes, it is revealed that the computer had to render 2 million different hairs to make the tiger feel realistic, which is a technical feat. Some other noticeable uses of CGI in the film are the large bioluminescent whale, the swarm of flying fish leaping from the depths below, the ominous island of the meerkats, the crisp blue water and the clear sky. These were all key set pieces that would have left Life of Pi empty if they had been executed poorly or just left out. Overall, the CGI magic used creates beautiful visualization of isolation and faith.
The Academy has recognized Life of Pi with many achievements and awarded four Oscars for cinematography, original score, visual effects and directing. I would highly recommend this film to almost anyone who has yet to see it and for people to re-watch it with information that is presented at the end of the movie. However, I would suggest to those who cannot stand movies that rely on CGI effects and characters that deal with isolation to avoid this movie. But other than that, Life of Pi is a technical master piece that should not be missed out on.