Life of Pi is visually magnificent but a thematic dud.

Rating: 6/10 (22 December 2012)

Life of Pi will undoubtedly receive much attention this award season, and it will appear on many top 10 lists. Some aspects of the movie are deserving of praise, other are not. The visuals in Life of Pi are consistently astounding, both from a technical and artistic level. Ang Lee and his crew do wonders with color, getting a lot of mileage out of the contrast between the white lifeboat against a crystalline blue ocean and the bright orange Bengal tiger. Whether viewed in 2D or 3D, Life of Pi absolutely pops off the screen. There are several scenes that show a level of majestic beauty that most that have to be seen to be believed. The cinematography is also creative, and it has to be. Much of the film takes place on a small lifeboat and Pi's makeshift raft, but this section rarely drags thanks to creative camera-work. The CGI is equally impressive. The shipwreck sequence may be the most stunning scene in any movie from 2012, and the computer generated animals are very convincing.
Unfortunately, the movie falters in its storytelling. The first problem is in the employment of a frame narrative, which is truly bizarre and unnecessary. The story is told in flashbacks as an adult Pi tells a writer his story, from his childhood to his experience stranded in the ocean. The way the story is told removes any tension from the plot, for the viewer already knows Pi survives and ends up living a normal life. More importantly, the scenes with Pi and the writer are incredibly dull and feel removed from the proper narrative thrust. Life of Pi would work much better as a straight narrative. It would be tighter -- about fifteen minutes could be removed, and the movie would lose nothing -- and Pi's story would feel more immediate and suspenseful.
This film also suffers from some pacing issues. The first act details Pi's childhood, and I did find this segment quite enjoyable. It served as a fine introduction to the main character and the film's visual style. Then we get to the incredible shipwreck segment and the story truly gets underway. All of the advertising will lead you to believe that Pi's time on the lifeboat is shared solely with the tiger, but before that Pi contends with a zebra, hyena, and an orangutan. This portion is rushed and we do not get to spend enough time with these animals before the tiger comes in. This is particularly problematic when the ending unfolds, for these animals serve an important purpose, but they feel ancillary instead of essential.
Speaking of the ending, Life of Pi's biggest issue lies in the final ten minutes, which are so catastrophically bad that the movie is rendered almost completely redundant. I did check that this review contains spoilers, but I won't go into details about the ending, so nobody accidentally stumbles upon them. I understand the movie is based on a book and the filmmakers wanted to follow the events therein. I have not read the novel, and I don't know how the author handled the "twist," but the film completely botches it. Almost everything that precedes the ending is retroactively ruined and made less significant, all in the favor of serving some thematic purpose. Life of Pi is not nearly as profound as it thinks it is. The message is poorly handled; for a movie that is so visually stunning, the storytelling is obsessed with telling the audience the message, symbolism, allegory, and themes. I left the movie insulted by the filmmakers, who think their audience would be too daft to understand their movie, so in the last ten minutes they drive home their point with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.