It did teach me about "God"

Rating: 3/10 (24 April 2013)

I need to forewarn that I went into this movie with high expectations due to the critical review from the industry and the public, and the expectations grew even more after Pi said his story would make his friend, (and by extension me) believe in God. The CGI landscapes, seascapes were beautiful, but the CGI people were not as they looked odd, almost demonic. Still, I was really intrigued now that Pi was claiming that his story would leave me no choice but believe in God, so I kept watching.
The story unfolded and there were some exciting scenes, as exciting as can be for a boy and his cat at sea, but even some of the animal CG looked a bit fake. Once the carnivorous island sequence appeared, I knew Pi was disconnected from reality, that it was not merely a case of artistic license. The movie went downhill from here.
I waited for the big reveal, the part that would force me to throw off the yoke of agnosticism, change my life forever and finally embrace a higher power. The big reveal, the entire story was an allegory at best, but more accurately a lie to make the truth easier and more profound than it actually was. My takeaway from Pi about believing in God and changing my life forever, God exists if you only pretend he exists and if you are going to pretend, you might as well pretend big and make the lie really grand, truth, honesty, objectivity and logic be damned. So, in that respect I guess I learned more about religion than I cared to.
Even worse, the author seems to assume that the public is stupid. At the end when we find out which animal characters represented which human characters, the orangutan being Pi's mother, the zebra being the sailor, the cook being the hyena, Pi's dimwitted friend asks,"but who is the tiger?" Really? Come on. Pi is like a magical miracle potion that everyone is raving about, but when you actually invest in it and buy it for yourself, you notice the label on the back that says, "Contents: Oil of Snake".