An empty candy wrapper

Rating: 1/10 (1 December 2012)

Let's be honest here: Life of Pi is a pretty looking movie with a rather dismal plot, and a pretentious religious subtext thrown in there for good measure.
Life of Pi might not be a bad movie. Realistically it would get maybe a 4 or 5 out of 10, but seeing as there's so many positive reviews here and all of them seem to be from either fanboys of the book, or people who haven't seen very many movies at all, I figured a 1 would be best to balance things out.
No doubt the film has some humorous moments that are indeed very funny, like the tiger peeing in Pi's face, Pi's "rules", and what not, and the film has tons of pretty visuals. A lot of the film takes place on a boat, and at times it looks like they used a real ocean to film it on. Not to mention the jellyfish scene was pretty, it was almost like James Cameron's Avatar.
But... the plot is just so vapid and pretentious, it defies description. Basically, the film throws around a lot of religious references, and it takes up a good portion of the plot, but dear LORD most of the time, the religious references were as subtle as bricks in a drying machine. At times it's like the writers are smacking you across the face with a bible. And when he father asked Pi (as a child) early in the film "how many more religions are you going to convert to?" (or something like that), I should have taken that as an indication as how the rest of the movie would be.
Oh and the many random moments which included (but weren't limited to): the strange 2:35.1 Aspect ratio change where suddenly a bunch of fish start flying out of the water into the boat (including WINGED fish that seemed like a Michael Bay wet dream), a carnivorous island full of meerkats (though to be fair, the meerkats scene was like a cuteness overdose), and humpback whale bit. Yeah.
There were parts of the film I enjoyed, but it honestly was just not a very good movie. It was like eating a platter full of candy and sugary sweets. Lots to indulge in and munch down on, but you've devoured nothing of substance by the end, and you're left with a stomach ache. And throwing a religious subtext in it doesn't mean the film is good or anything... It's just pretentious.
So yeah, like I said. Realistically my rating would be a 4 or 5 out of 10, but the 8.4 rating and amounts of 10/10 reviews here is just ridiculous.