The 'un-filmable' story proves just so

Rating: 3/10 (14 March 2013)

Despite all the congratulatory proclamations of "Ang Lee did the impossible, he filmed what many thought was essentially an un-filmable story"...well, guess what? It is hard to put on film, and it remains so. Nowhere anywhere near Ang Lee captured the essence of Yann Martel's story. Quite the opposite, so many things went wrong with the final cut, that I believe the original story got some really bad rap and will be tainted in eyes of the thousands of the movie-goers round the world.
I should know better when I couldn't see Yann Martel's name as a script co-writer. Perhaps he was invited to help, perhaps he declined (knowing well that this is a potential failure).
This movie works only on one level - visual. Hardly enough for the spiritual/philosophical jewel that this wants to be. And even the visuals get boring after some time, because there's no deeper core to hold the movie together.
All in all, this is a spectacular eye-candy with not much else. The movie sets the bar really high right from the start - the writer is told he may start believing in God when the story is done. I'm watching for the transformation to occur, but... My opinion is this even wasn't Martel's intention. His book is a nice puzzle, which can be turned round and round in one's mind, while one senses there are many layers down below to be peeled, but the conclusion is left to the reader. The movie - quite some difference, it slaps the belief in God on the screen in first 5 minutes...and then never delivers! The introduction of the 'alternative' story is so botched I couldn't believe it. No cut away scenes, just plain recount, told with such heavy Indian accent that had I not known it from the book, I would have missed it altogether.
This story shouldn't have been filmed, when I think of it. The book has so many nuances, beautiful and not-so-beautiful details (drink turtle blood, anyone?)...but it all comes together so well. The story of a boy and a tiger in one boat sounds impossible to many, but the book manages to pull in some interesting details, and makes it somewhat realistic - biology and dominance factors, circus training principles etc. One detail for all - the boy sets the territory right in the book, half the boat...yet, the movie felt this wasn't working, so the boy gets to wander around the whole boat. There are numerous leaps of faith required, which were beyond my threshold sometimes. Changes were obviously required for pacing what could otherwise be a terribly boring movie, but to what effect? The tiger sure never jumped out of the boat after a fish, and the boy sure never had to help the tiger back in the boat! Jeeezzz...there goes another half of the movie.
After all the buzz, I felt terribly disappointed in this movie.