Surprised at Lee's attention to detail; Unfortunately, the tiger is still 'crouching', and the dragon/potential still 'hidden'

Rating: 5/10 (1 December 2012)

I was pleasantly surprised by the extensive effort carried out by Ang Lee to keep the movie as faithful to the book as possible. The setting (a mixed infrastructure landscape in India , culture, and the animal environment) I believe were correctly chosen and helped to blend in the scenes to be as natural as possible. The animation, is possibly one of the most accurate and realistic depiction of animal behaviour that I have seen in a movie, despite being CGI. Truly an Oscar-deserving achievement and a new high benchmark has been set for future CG animations out there. Kudos to this effort as the non-human characters are part of the essential recipe to bring out the best from this movie. The Indian actors did very well in their roles, many of them are actually well-known actors but I am not excluding the main actor (a newbie I believe) who was adequately into his character throughout the whole movie.
However, I have to be serious when I said that the movie was only adequate. Reasons being: -
1. The potential, I am afraid, was not utilised to the maximum. Many of the subjects and issues being brought up are massively complicated...While the movie did a good job in the first half of the movie, towards the second half the effect has tapered substantially due to too many unnecessary CG effects. I am not referring to the effects that contribute to the novel's intention. For instance, a prolonged scene of the lifeboat being unrealistically tossed around the ocean and nearly ramming into the sinking ship, like a mini toyboat, is best taken out of the movie as it left behind a lot of doubtful impression in my opinion.
2. Rebalancing is needed. This is the most critical flaw in my opinion when comparing Life of Pi versus some of the best movies within the same genre. Some of the CG effects (excluding the animals) were not only unnecessary but took far too long, and sadly did not help to build up progress in the hidden message this movie is trying to deliver fundamentally. The movie was disappointing in this way because some of the things that has happened, they did not need to be elaborated extensively in order for the audience to comprehend. A slow pace is okay, but the main culprit lies in the extra screen-time just for the sake of special effects, other important details that could have been highlighted were sadly sacrificed. Really a rebalancing of CG effects vs critical points in the flow of plot is needed.
3. In fact, narration should be given a stronger role. Life of Pi was initiated with the narration from the older Pi, I don't see why it would not be feasible to input some narration to hear the young Pi's thought during his ordeal (and yes I know what happened during the ending). I did not read the novel, but I had the chance to glance through parts of it and recall that the novel focuses a lot on its inner thoughts rather than the surrounding effects. No matter how good CGI can do, it cannot capture small details that can be crucial to the plot and that is where this movie needs to rely on more than one medium to bring it to new heights.
4. Again, the main actor's performance as Pi was only adequate. Although it is unfair to scrutinize his attempts given that he had to portray Pi through probably more than half of the movie, when anyone is under such an ordeal (for the sake of survival) I would expect something more complicated or changes in his character behaviour. Especially given the ending which offered the audience a full picture of what was going on. This is probably a fault that should be attributed towards the imperfect direction of Ang Lee. For instance, he has illogically displayed too much energy during times when he was supposed to be conserving energy, seemed to be unaffected by hypothermia and other physical deterioration (especially when he was swept into the cold ocean several times in the mid of night) and he has illogically presented himself as too calm a person at times, given that he was a unique teenager character under severe physical and mental trauma.
5. Anyone can tell me if 'you are able to find god after hearing my story' has serve its purpose? It did not, for me.
All in, this movie is a worthy Oscar contender, especially for CG effects, but unfortunately, the tiger is still 'crouching', and the dragon/potential still 'hidden'