"A masterpiece" ? - No, no, no, no, no !

Rating: 4/10 (4 March 2013)

The Life of Pi, applauded for it's visual effects and labelled a "masterpiece" by many, yes I expected a lot. However, I have to admit, never have I struggled so much to understand the hype surrounding a film than I have with this. Okay, its not awful or the worse film I've ever seen but in no way is it a masterpiece, in fact its so far from a masterpiece that I found myself wishing I was at sea in a boat with a tiger rather than being in a cinema theater watching it!
Some parts of the movie is watchable, others will bore you to sleep and then others are completely enchanting. I found myself really interested in the movie when Irrfan Khan, an adult Pi was speaking, especially in the final scene where his storytelling truly captures everyone's attention. However, this is one of the only times I found myself enjoying the movie, throughout the other scenes I was only thinking about when the film would end.
The Life of Pi is like a really beautiful person who has no personality and when you look closer you see that the person isn't all that beautiful at all, covered in make up, fake! I relate this to the Life of Pi as everyone claims its a beautiful movie and that the visual effects are "breath taking" when really they're not! Yes, some scenes are beautiful, but others are absolutely awful! An example- the storm scene, its so dark, I found myself squinting and straining just to see the bloody thing! A scene that is suppose to be beautiful is when a whale jumps out of the water! Firstly, it didn't look real at all and secondly was completely pointless and irrelevant to the film, although in truth the film was exactly that also! Its almost like Ang Lee said to himself, due to how crap the plot of this movie is, I'll throw in a few jellyfish and a whale, lovely, that'll win me an Oscar! Yes it did, however, in my opinion it was totally undeserved!
Life of Pi lacks everything really! never once did I find myself liking the main character, a younger Pi, in fact I was praying that he would just drown already! The whole film consists of him on a raft and a tiger on a boat, ahh kill me now! Also the first hour of the film is just about Religion, which again, would bore you to death. In fact you feel like you're still in the opening scene in the final scene :Z I found the actor Suraj Sharma a complete bore,then again considering the part he had to play I probably would have found Cheryl Cole in her nude boring playing the part also! I commented on his acting and how I found him dull to a friend and he replied "you have to give him credit, he was acting the whole film in a water tank with a tennis ball" and when I said he was awful at crying and emotional scenes he said "oh come on, he was crying to a tennis ball, could you cry to a tennis ball"- well the answer is probably not but I'm not a professional actor and I didn't get millions to cry!
Overall, I'd say don't bother watching this movie and definitely don't buy the DVD, I can only imagine that would be 10 times worse. Often in movies like this, there is such an emphasis put on visual effects that the plot gets left behind and this was very much the case with The Life of Pi! Yes, beautiful scenes and CGI tigers are good, they're a bonus but for god sake, please focus on the actually movie first, make me enjoy it, make me like the character, keep me focused! When I go to see a movie I expect to enjoy it and to relate to its characters Mr Lee, not just see "beautiful" visual effects that in truth weren't all that beautiful. If i wanted to watch beautiful animals and landscape, I'd have watched the national geographic channel, not gone to see a movie. Please don't waste your time with this movie, its 2 hours of your life that you will never get back!